Understanding Software Vulnerabilities and How to Mitigate Them

If you have recently developed a mobile app or computer software, you’d know what software vulnerabilities are. You now might be looking for ways to mitigate them. Guess what? You have landed on the right page. I’ll be putting forward a detailed guideline for you all in your journey towards mitigating software vulnerabilities.

Those who aren’t developers themselves and don’t know what software vulnerabilities are, allow me to talk about it.

Software vulnerabilities are the glitches or weaknesses present in the software. Here is an important aspect; software vulnerabilities can exist in all software, but what matters is whether or not they are exploited or not to cause severe damage.

Identifying software vulnerabilities is critical in order to mitigate them. Let’s discuss the common vulnerabilities first.

Common Software Vulnerabilities

1- Injection Flaws

Injection flaws enable the attacker to transmit harmful code. These consist of different factors such as calls to the operating systems, use of third-party programs, and SQL injections. In your goal of mitigating software vulnerabilities, repulsing injection flaws is extremely important.

2- Broken Authentication

Broken authentication makes it possible for malicious agents to access systems, consequently breaching security. These agents pretend like authorized users and jeopardize the sensitive data, operation systems, and network files.

3- Broken Access Control

It is a policy that defines user functions. This is what makes its breach extremely dangerous. If breached, it can bring about information leaks, data tampering, and system interference.

4- Sensitive Data Exposure

If you haven’t secured your company’s database, you are running the risk of compromising your sensitive data. Attackers can easily exploit the leaked data. It is extremely easy for hackers to take advantage of this flaw if your system lacks protection.

5- Cross-site Scripting

This vulnerability serves the hackers the opportunity to administer malicious scripts in the application. Attackers utilize XSS to perform unauthorized activities and steal user login information. The consequences are more critical if your software has sensitive data.

6- Security Misconfiguration

Security misconfiguration is actually the inefficient implementation of security controls. These loopholes are an easy target for hackers to exploit and inflict damage to the business.

7- Cross-Site Request Forgery

It compels a user to carry out harmful actions on an application. If the admin users are compromised, the complete application can be jeopardized.

Mitigating Software Vulnerabilities

1- Buffer overflow

Applications are generally designed in a way that enables data to be preserved in a cached format. This attack overloads that buffer, risking the data to be stolen and lost, subsequently compromising the system. Buffer overflow vulnerabilities can identify the compromised code and then resolve it.

2- Vulnerability Assessment Should be the Norm

A critical component of any cybersecurity practice is a vulnerability assessment. Underlying software flaws to prevent unauthorized access to applications can be dealt with by routinely assessing your network for security vulnerabilities.

You can also use vulnerability scanners for this purpose. Consistently assessing vulnerabilities, especially through frameworks like the Essential 8, promotes stronger security and gets rid of zero-day threats.

3- Handling SQL and OS command injection vulnerabilities

Lines of SQL code and OS commands are responsible for telling an application when to take a certain action. When there is a vulnerability in this area, attackers can inject replacement code to reroute the data to the attacker.

In this regard, vulnerability scanners can identify SQL or OS command injection vulnerabilities as they handle other bugs and glitches, consequently assisting in mitigating software vulnerabilities.

Mitigating Software Vulnerabilities: A Constant Process

Everything I have explained above will set your organization in the right direction towards boosting your vulnerability management programs. But it is important to remember that vulnerability management is an ongoing process, and you need to treat it as such.

In any case, you should reach out to the experts in this domain at vteams with the aim of mitigating software vulnerabilities.