For an investor, .NET seems like a worthy technology to develop business software. It is flexible, easy to maintain, cost-effective, and useful for software development in a variety of sectors. If you ask a DotNet developer about its advantages you will get to know about more benefits it holds.

But as good as it sounds you might have one question. Is a .NET application secure? For the most part yes, they are safe thanks to the hard work Microsoft does for the .NET ecosystem. But with the forces behind security breaches, no application is completely impenetrable!

Let’s assess .NET security by first looking at the types of threats that pose a risk to your application.

Types Of Security Breaches That Affect .NET

Applications made from any framework are bound to come with the same risks regarding security. Throughout time, several software security risks have been identified and grouped. All web application security risks fall into one of the following categories:

Phishing Attacks

A phishing attack appears in the form of fraudulent communications, mostly emails. Although these emails may seem genuine they are not! The senders of these emails can be quite convincing and imaginative. Yet their only aim is to gain login details, credit/debit card details, or bank details.

They could also get other personal details such as names and addresses. Their ability to do this with success makes phishing attacks a worry for everyone accessing the internet. 

Malware Attacks

These attacks are carried out by a special software program. The aim of malware software is to render software or physical devices unusable. They may even try to access and control the device on which they are run. 

Examples of malware include viruses, trojans, ransomware, file infectors, and more. These are usually transferred by opening a file that has malware software. 

Attacks such as these are referred to as cyber-attacks and are very common in today’s world. Protecting against these attacks would be a good idea since they can affect anyone and create adverse effects for your users. 

Cross-Site (XXS) Attacks

Cross-site attacks are a type of code injection attack. They occur when a user purposely uses an application to send malicious code to an end-user. The malicious code is usually in the form of a browser-side script. The end user’s browser trusts the script and will execute it anyway. 

The malicious code now has access to the user’s browser and can access sensitive items like cookies, session tokens, login credentials, etc. As a result, the sender of the malicious can actually digitally impersonate the user. Through NET development, you can protect against XXS attacks.     

SQL Injection Attacks

An SQL (Structured Query Language) injection attack occurs when a user inputs code to an application. Most SQL injection attacks aim to retrieve data from the database, alter the database, execute administrative tasks, etc. 

The attack can effectively create its own commands and have them executed. Attacks like these have ranging effects. It compromises data making tampering much easier as well as renders pre-existing database commands ineffective. 

Open Redirect Attacks

An open redirect attack involves redirecting a user from their destination Uniform Resource Locator (URL) to one that is malicious. These vulnerabilities lie in websites with poor URL constructs. Fraudulent people may use open redirects as a support tool for carrying out their phishing attacks.

In fraudulent emails with a URL, the link may seem genuine but takes the user to a different destination. The user may have to type in their username and password and the attacker would record these details. The user is then taken back to the real website, maybe without knowing what happened! 

Man-In-The-Middle (MITM) Attacks 

A man-in-the-middle attack occurs when a perpetrator conveniently positions themselves in the middle of online exchanges. The attacker pretends to be the partner to both participants in the conversation. 

What does this eavesdropper aim to gain? A range of personal information can be stolen from these attacks including login credentials, account details, and card details. Targets for these attacks are usually businesses in the financial sector and eCommerce websites. 

Security IN .NET

Seeing as one of the most influential and trustworthy companies manages the .NET ecosystem, security is of the topmost importance. Microsoft is responsible for managing the security of the .NET platform and hence, .NET applications as well. 

What security measures does .NET provide? 

Microsoft ensures that .NET remains a safe environment by identifying and tackling new threats as soon as they arrive. 

Code Access Security (CAS)

Code Access Security (CAS) is the ability for the .NET common runtime language (CRL) to restrict code execution when permissions are limited. But, how exactly will CAS protect your .NET application? 

Every time a third-party code tries to access your .NET application, CAS will come into effect. It will inhibit the third-party code from accessing data because it does not have the respective permissions. The CAS checks the source of the code to determine if it has access or not. 

This is very effective against malicious files that try to mimic managed code that does have access to the data. 

Cryptography

The process of cryptography deals with rendering normal text unreadable. This ensures that it is safe to transfer data and store it without worrying about theft or tampering. It is a type of data encryption that converts data into a code that is difficult to decipher without a specific algorithm. 

Verification

Executed data goes through a verification process to ensure that no security risks manage to slip by and create problems. Additionally, Verification can help to avoid major security problems resulting from flaws. 

Azure

Microsoft Azure earns its spot as a top cloud service provider that is both efficient and secure enough for any business. The Azure cloud service offers security whose formation contains three elements: 

• Physical security
• Security of Infrastructure
• Data access security 

While Microsoft perfectly manages the first two parameters, the third one is not exactly under their control. But even then, Microsoft’s Azure cloud security is available for .NET users. 

One feature is the Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) that allows management of user authorizations and permission from one place. You can easily permit or block certain users from accessing areas of your .Net application. Or you can see who was the last to access the application. 

Another feature is the Azure Security Center which acts as a security dashboard showing you various ways to improve security. It rates your application and gives it a score and improvement pointers that can be used to increase your overall security score. 

Xamarin

Xamarin is a framework catering to mobile application security and development. It offers developers the ability to encrypt data so it is less vulnerable to threats. Additionally, it secures storage making it inaccessible to encroaching hackers and malware. 

If used properly, Xamarin provides a unique opportunity to develop a completely secure mobile application. Considered among the best mobile development frameworks, Xamarin is usable for Android, iOS, and Windows mobile app development. 

Conclusion

In a world where data is under constant threat of theft or misuse, security is most important for every investor. Since .NET is managed by Microsoft, your application will not be as vulnerable to security threats as other applications. Mobile and web application security will not be an issue to worry about when using .NET.