How to Ensure Maximum PHP Security

Tags: php, security, wordpress
Published: 2021-03-05 10:39:08

One must be concerned about security online no matter the platform used or the purpose - this applies for PHP web applications as well. 

If the best security practices aren’t followed, your PHP web applications remain insecure and open to hackers attempting to steal sensitive information such as user data and credit card information. Moreover, data breaches have a huge effect both in the short-term and long-term with respect to credibility and customer trust. 

So, what steps can you take to ensure that this doesn’t happen?

Regular updates

Before stepping into the more technical steps of protection, it is important that this basic, yet often ignored, step be brought to attention. One must be aware about the most recent stable PHP versions and update them accordingly for maximum protection. Updates contain patches to common security issues that are known to hackers, who are looking to exploit these vulnerabilities in older versions. 

PHP also has an interesting feature of ‘preview releases’ or beta versions that you can try out. However, security professionals recommend that these not be used by companies as they are still in their testing stage and are therefore riddled with unknown vulnerabilities that can be misused. A <a href="https://www.getastra.com/blog/security-audit/aws-security-audit/">AWS security audit </a> is a great approach to test your server for security issues.

Validation of user input

When accepting inputs through an input field, a validation process must be set in place to make sure that the data accepted has the correct type and format. It should be set to filter out malicious code inserted by hackers to compromise the functioning of the site. In this case, developers resort to regular expressions (regex) for checking the data entered (like date of birth or phone number). 

Refrain from uploading all framework files to your server

Most PHP frameworks consist of the ‘Model-View-Controller’ file structure, which implies that they have large file structures. 

It’s crucial that all the files present here are not uploaded directly to the web server - instead, only choose the necessary files under the ‘public_html’ folder. This is because if you choose to upload all your files in this manner, hackers can then easily gain access to these files and understand how your business functions and other crucial details like security loopholes, bugs, and other vulnerabilities. 

Prepared SQL statements

When the web application takes in user input, it is highly advised that this not be done directly into an SQL statement. This is the prime position for a possible SQL injection attack - the user breaks the intended SQL query and inputs malicious code to conduct their desired query and utilize your site as they wish. Queries could be as harmful as gaining access to all users’ information through a single command.

Instead, by using a prepared statement, the input values go through a sanitization process and reduce the possibility of an SQL injection attack. Using functions such as ‘bind_param’ dictates the SQL query what type of data it is restricted to, such as ‘string’ for name or profession. This adds onto the protection measure of data validation.

XSS (Cross-site scripting) protection

This is when remote code is executed by your web application unknowingly, causing dangerous consequences. Hackers can use HTML, CSS, or JavaScript to ensure that the web application executes their remote code. 

The webpage may not show any alarming messages or warning signs that modifications have been made, but this loophole allows the hackers to gain illegitimate access to the content on your site and even steal sensitive information like credit card details. <a href="https://www.getastra.com/blog/911/wordpress-backdoor-hack/">Hackers plant backdoors</a> in sites like WordPress, Magento, OC, PHP & PrestaShop to exploit them for long time.

Here, make sure you escape all user input accepted by the site to skip remote code execution. 

Limiting directory access

Providing access on a need basis is always a good step for protection of data. The ‘open_basedir’ function gives the choice to limit the files that’s accessible by PHP from your file system. If you set the function to the root of your project, it will limit access to only files in the root and then, downwards. 

This is so that if hackers gain access to your server through PHP, this function stops them from accessing sensitive files such as ‘/etc/passwd’. 

URL Encoding

There’s a provision for the ‘urlencode’ function in PHP for safely generating valid URLs when the user input is used for this purpose, which is especially useful when one needs to encode a string that is used as part of a query. 

Verify SSL configuration

SSL certificates have long been useful for protecting sites and allowing the safe transfer of files through ‘https’ - but outdated SSL certificates or weak ciphers can be equally dangerous, if not more.

Always remember to update expired SSL certificates as they are an effective barrier of protection against XSS attacks as well.

These are some of the steps you can follow to ensure PHP security - of course, your needs are unique and may go beyond a general list of safety measures, so there’s always an alternative of entrusting your business with professionals like <a href="http://www.getastra.com">Astra Security</a>