How Secure is Jamstack?

What is security? Why is the world so obsessed with security? Why are businesses so concerned about their data security? How is Jamstack secure? To help you learn everything about Security in websites and web apps we have put together some resources to help you in understanding the Security with Jamstack technology.  

We will not be constituting any legal advice through this article, rather it will be more as content providing the information and education on web securities using Jamstak technology. Jamstack technology is known for providing speed and security to web apps and we will elaborate the security with Jamstack technology in this article. 

Lets’ start with the very basic information regarding security. 

What is data security? 

Data security is a simple method of protecting digital information from any unauthorized access through its complete lifecycle. 

Data security is a concept encompassing every aspect of IT security from virtual security like access controls and administration to physical security like that of hardware security and storage devices, also the logical security of the applications and website. It may also include organizational procedures and policies.

What is web security?

Not much different from data security, web applications need to be secured since the web properties are exposed to the internet that may get attacked from various locations, scales, levels, and complexity. 

The security of web applications is the primary element of web-based business. It mainly deals with the security that is covering the websites, web services like APIs, and web applications.

Why are data and web security important?

To understand the importance of security, it is important to know what are the common methods of vectors or attacks that web app security should be working for;   

SQL Injections

SQL injections (SQi) is the process of exploiting vulnerabilities in the database by executing search queries. The attackers use SQi to get access to unauthorized information, change or build new user permissions, to manipulate or damage sensitive data available in the DB.

Cross-Site Scripting

Cross-site scripting is a vulnerability allowing the attackers to infuse client-side scripts into a webpage to obtain important information instantly, portraying the user, or deceiving the user into sharing important information.

Denial of Services

When the webserver is unable to effectively process the incoming requests due to a variety of attackers, vectors overloading a targeted server or its infrastructure with diverse types of attack traffic. It starts behaving sluggishly and ultimately revokes service to incoming requests from authorized users.

Buffer Overflow

A simple exception occurring while writing data software defining the space in memory is known as a buffer. Its overflow results in overwriting the memory locations and it may inject malicious code into creating vulnerability into machine or memory.     

Memory Corruption

It is an occurrence due to an unintentional modification in the memory resulting in the potential of any unexpected behavior in the web application. The hackers attempt to exploit memory corruption through buffer overflow or such code injections.

Data Breach 

Data breaching is a simple term used to refer to any release of confidential or sensitive information or may occur from a mistake or any malicious actions or by mistake. Its scope is to breach data that is exposed to user accounts.

Cross-site request forgery

It includes the trick used on the victims to make a request utilizing their authorization, once a user account is created the hacker can access, modify or destroy the data. 

How is web security implemented?

Now that you know what are the threats that a web application is facing it is time to get into the detail of web securities by analyzing the involvement of various techniques and check-points for keeping the data safe. Some essential steps involve setting up proper authentication, up-to-date encryption, and following secure development practices. 

The most famous solutions for building and testing any web app preventable from threats are noted below

• Whitebox testing tools
• Blackbox testing tools
• Password cracking tools
• Web application firewalls
• Fuzzing tools
• Security scanners

Defense Strategy of Developers

To keep the developed software secure the developers mainly use two defense strategies; 

Resource Assignment

A resource that has been assigned the task of updating the web security level and dealing with the threats and issues. 

Web Scanning

Some web scanning solution is also helpful in creating a security strategy for the web application. 

Web security is important when you are dealing with private or confidential information, so businesses give greater importance to security when it calls for a website or a web application.  

The Role of Jamstack Technology in Web security

As explained above, the coding structure and the developer’s strategic practice in developing the software plays a vital role in web security and it holds more importance than the tools. Hence Jamstack technology is the architecture that plays an effective role in the security strategy. 

Headless CMS 

The headless WordPress acts as a back-end only and since it is decoupled from the front-end by using the React-based static site generators like Gatsby and NextJS it has an isolated back-end by making the connection by using APIs like GraphQL. 

The headless CMS removes numerous points of failure and attack vectors. 

CDN and hosting infrastructure  

Another benefit of using Jamstack technology in respect to web security is that the data is published using a Content Delivery Network or an Application Delivery Network like Netlify or vercel. The purpose of the CDN is to serve pre-build files on demand. 

This server-side deligation removes many anomalies from the web application making it more secure from hacking and SQL injections. Especially with no plugins, databases, or dynamic software running on the server, the chances for hacks and code injection is greatly reduced. 

Since the Jamstack website is a collection of static files, all dynamic functions are instead handled with APIs and client-side JavaScript, negating the need to rely on CMS plugins.

Conclusion

We hereby conclude that there is not one factor involved in web security as it is the process of securing from the development phase till the deployment and processing. Hence the process starts with choosing the right stack and architecture if the base of the web application is secure your data will be much secure and immune in the long run.  

With JavaScript functionality, the involvement of APIs, and Markup the Jamstack based websites and web applications are secure during the build making it difficult for the hackers to manipulate the data maliciously.