6 Security Tips for .NET App Development that Every Developer Should Know

While working for the development of any application in a software development company or any other business sectors, it is the core responsibility of the software developer to consider the security features at the topmost priority to achieve success for the development of an application or a product. It is very important to highlight security features when working with ASP.NET Web application projects as there are chances to receive threats of unethical access.

To avoid this kind of threat, as an ASP.NET developer, one must take care of a few mandatory security tips or measures to avoid all sorts of threats related to the security of the web applications.

1. SQL injection

This is the common way for hackers to sneak into the database to gain access access. They fire various SQL queries to try and fetch the data from the database. They majorly perform this query into the database through separate commands from several web browsers and try to reach the sensitive data of the application or to the user’s database.

However, ASP.Net supports various security features to avoid SQL injection from hackers but it is good to learn what the SQL injection is and how does it work. It is done before starting the development of the application.

Here are some crucial ways to prevent this,

query=” Select * from Employee where empId=@empId”; 
SqlCommand sqlCommand=new SqlCommand(query);
sqlCommand.Parameters.AddRange(parameters);

• Use parameters in your SQL queries. For example,
• Always validate data entered by users on the front end as well as backend
• Use escape sequences if needed
• Checking the value of parameters by their datatypes to see if the values are valid or not

Read More: Web Application Development Using .NET Blazor Framework

2. Cross-Site Scripting

This is another way of hacking websites using JavaScript. Any hacker can use this technology to access the user’s data. Not only this but the hacker can access your cookies values from your web browsers to access the login credentials and can perform the unethical activities by impersonating you. One must take care of this problem and take action against this by the ASP.net developers.

HTML encoding must be there in your application to prevent these types of attacks. HTML encoding converts special characters like ‘ <’ or ‘>’ in a safe format.

You also need to encode your URL parameters in case attackers try to pass ‘Not so safe format’ in your URL.

3. Proper cookie implementation:

Once you are working with the on-going trend of web application development, as an ASP.net developer, you should make sure that the cookies are used in a very efficient and sensitive manner.

So, if the hackers access the value of the cookie then it will be a problem for all the users and hence it will be a negative user experience for every user who is connected to your web application. So better to take care while dealing with the cookies in the application.

There are a few ways you can make sure that your cookies are not getting stolen by an attacker. One way is adding configuration related to cookies, so that way we can ensure that the security is applied globally to our application:

• Make sure you are using Https instead of Http for your website. After that you can include the below line in your web.config:
• Another setting is to allow cookies to be accessed on HTTP request only. You can do that by making changes in your web.config:

4. Use sessions

It is a common feature of developing an ASP.net web application that every ASP.net developer should take care of. The session is continuous support from the database which every user gets while connecting to the application. It is also an important aspect of developing an ASP.Net web application.

The best part of it is that it allows the user to access only the private data and hence it keeps all other data invisible for the user.

Hackers can steal the data and take complete access to the application. User credentials can be stolen from a Non-secure connection which is without SSL. Also, it is possible to steal the login credentials which is either easy to predict or are the weak credentials. If there is some problem with the session such as session ID exposed in the URL or the session time-out or some improper log out from the application which results in not killing the session during the log out can be the reason of stolen user credentials and threatening to your application’s sensitive data

We can use the .Net session variable which is quite safe as it is stored on the server-side. You can create a session in your application, like below:

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5. Server Validation

The most effective way to avoid unwanted unethical access in your application. A skilled ASP.Net developer should validate all the forms of data in both the frontend as well as the backend programming. Therefore, if someone disables the JavaScript from the browser by entering any value to the database.

Hence, to prevent this the application should be secure with the 2-tier security from both the frontend as well as the backend. To gain the maximum benefits of the ASP.net technology one should consider hiring the service of the custom software development companies.

In Asp.net MVC, you can check the validity of your data by using ModelState.IsValid and by making properties as required or by mentioning their range.

//UserModel.cs
[Required]
public string Username {get;set;}
//Controller
public bool Validation(UserModel model)
{
  if(ModelState.IsValid)
{  return true;  }
else{  return false;  }
}

6. Clickjacking

Clickjacking is tricking the user into clicking on some hidden website or link which they do not intend to while they are trying to access some other content of your website. This attack is also known as “UI redress attack”. The attackers can use your website and can put it on their website to place transparent controls over it. By doing this, they can access the confidential information of the user.

As a developer, what we can do is,

if (top.location.hostname != self.location.hostname) {
            top.location.href = self.location.href;
        }

protected void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
            HttpContext.Current.Response.AddHeader("x-frame-options", "DENY");
}

• Add script that will prevent website from being iframed. For example:
• You also need to add header in your application’s global.asax start event, like this:

To sum up, here we discussed that security is a key for any web application, and if not handled properly, it may harm the businesses and sensitive data of any .NET Development company We discussed five of the most common vulnerabilities of ASP.NET web applications.