Tips and Tricks for Ajax Security

There are so many things you should know about Ajax. The complexity of the design in a single website could be enormous that a “straightforward” application may be the same as a complicated HTML or even a Java based website. Unfortunately, all the complexities of Ajax are only geared to entertain people and never on security. That’s why Ajax is now the new favorite of hackers because of the security flaws of some of the website is quite obvious that it’s really easy to take a peek of all the important information. Before you get started, here are some tips in preventing those types of attacks.

1. Attacks are often geared towards the server – some hackers wanted to give malicious codes to fellow users by letting them click or open the information. However, Ajax is one powerful program that uses the ability of the server to get them all together. Because of this, hackers go straight to the source. From this assumption there are lots of tricks that a hacker could think of in order to penetrate the server’s information. This penetration could destroy the server or even steal precious information from other users.
2. Avoid Same Origin Policy – This policy refers to different applications accessing the Ajax based website. Although application is filtered and could be isolated, it can even be bypassed in so many ways. This could be prevented by using an Ajax proxy. When an application tries to go inside the program, it will be forwarded to another web application that “looks” like a part of the program but is actually a 3^rd party evaluation tool. Remoteservice.com is one of the companies that offer this type of services. Before it could actually use your information it has to go through remoteservice.com for security check.
3. Prevent Cross Scripting – Cross Scripting is probably the oldest trick in the book of hackers especially on Ajax based websites. This is a very specific trick that could be launched anytime. All the hackers needs to do is to insert a little bit of an extra program in their uploaded video or other information to another site and let it work on it’s own. You could prevent this by creating an input value check. It could be a little bit difficult since you’ll be barring some codes or inputs but with practice you can easily use this.
4. Beware of Using Dynamic Code Generators – there are so many tools in the web that you can use. For programmers there’s nothing sweeter than just to generate a code instantly. However since it was easily done, it can also be a perfect place for an attack.
5. Using <iframe> - if you insist in using same-origin policy, use <iframe>. This is a simple tag which isolates different contents especially from external sources. Using an <iframe> it will basically bottle the application and will prevent accessing your other functions. You just have to make sure that all other applications needed in <iframe> are provided since trusted sources might never work if they are bottled without the right or compatible content.