SECURE WEB DEVELOPMENT
Introdution
For many organisations the website has become their front door to the outside world. By their very nature they exist in a truly worldwide network where effective inter-communication between systems, organisations and individuals is achieved because everything is “joined up”. This tight integration however brings risks and unless deliberate steps are taken to ensure adequate protection then the likelihood of the website being compromised are surprisingly high.
Until relatively recently the threats that websites can introduce to a business and the risks that arise from those threats had not been fully appreciated but the number of incidents has so quickly accelerated to what is now epidemic proportions that this has brought new focus on the importance of making sure websites do not present a security risk.
Many websites already in existence have been either developed by Graphic Design or similar agencies or by web designers who provide attractive appearance using their creative skills but who, because they are not experienced technical IT developers do not have sufficient knowledge of the complexities of secure development. The result is a website that works well and looks good which is probably what was asked for in the first place and everyone ends up happy – until the website is breached through unauthorised intrusion.
The ideal solution is for the Graphic Design and IT Security specialists to combine so that all of the advantages of creativity and appeal are leveraged together with protection against attack.
How we make sure your website is securely developed
The Meritec development team comprises resources with extensive IT,web development and IT Security backgrounds. These combine to ensure the websites we develop for clients, often as mentioned above working to a design brief provided by the clients preferred creative agency, are not exposed to unauthorised intrusion. All Meritec technical staff hold appropriate qualifications relative to their particular discipline.
Using recognised IT industry good practice and proven development techniques complemented by acknowledged IT security standards and processes our objective is to maximise security without compromising the effectiveness and performance of the finished system.
Our development methodology starts with a risk assessment of the proposed website at the design stage which informs the application security requirements. From the outset code is developed with security uppermost in the developers’ mind to make sure those vulnerabilities and weaknesses which would otherwise arise are avoided.