OWASP Supporting Legacy Web Applications in the Current Environment Project

Main

Legacy systems are everywhere. The security of these applications need to come into focus, mainly in the space of financial sector. This is because the impact of the known and discovered vulnerabilities in this area stand to lose a lot in terms of reputation, client base, user base and money. This apart from the legal implications. This particular project will focus on supporting legacy web applications in financial sector and will not consider any other sectors in scope.

Project About

This project will focus on listing down legacy technologies, applications that typically use these technologies, space of usage of these technologies, and their known vulnerabilities.

The next step would then list down remediation of these vulnerabilities and / or compensating controls such that it can be used as a cheat sheet that can be used by organisations that actualy have legacy technologies as a part of their organisation.

What are legacy web applications

Legacy web applications are built in technologies, those technologies, that have been improved upon in terms of frameworks and key features since they were first built. These are also the systems, the license for whose technologies, are expired, and it is no longer possible to either renew the licenses or to buy new licenses.

Why do we still have them?

Legacy web applications are retained for a number if reasons, some of them being: 1. Financial resources to replace these applications are not available, though there is a cost benefit in doing the same. 2. The underlying architecture for the applications is complex and it is challenging to reconstruct the same. 3. There are upstream and downstream elements dependent on this application and replacement of the central application will require replacement of all the connected applications.

What are the vulnerabilities associated with legacy web applications?

Following are some of the vulnerabilities

1. Database connections

2. Sessions

3. Lack of necessary knowledge to support the application

4. Configurations

5. Insecure code

6. Data in transit

7. Data at rest

8. Lack of necessary secure login / authentication mechanism

What are the threats to these applications?

1. SQL injections

2. Session replay

3. Incomplete handling of errors

4. Directory listing

5. Visibility of configuration files

6. Broken / stolen authentication

How do we address these risks in the current environment?

1. Isolation

2. Wrappers

3. Education

4. Part code replacement

5. Complete code migration

6. Robust processes

PROJECT INFO What does this OWASP project offer you?

RELEASE(S) INFO What releases are available for this project?

what is this project? Name: OWASP Supporting Legacy Web Applications in the Current Environment Project (home page) Purpose: Supporting Legacy Web Applications in the current environment. Legacy web applications are a reality in life. Even now, there are several out there some of them supporting sensitive business area like banking, insurance, marketing and idea generation. As these applications get outsourced for maintenance, security becomes a crucial aspect both from a perspective of outsourcing and the inherent vulnerabilities of the web app. Added to this is the people aspect of lack of knowledge of security. Typically there is a gap between developers maintaining the application and the security personnel who help the developers in making the app more secure. I would like to highlight these challenges and bring forth the critical security points in legacy web apps. License: CC-BY 3.0 who is working on this project? Project Leader(s): Shruti Kulkarni @ how can you learn more? Project Pamphlet: Not Yet Created Project Presentation: Mailing list: Mailing List Archives Project Roadmap: View Key Contacts Contact Shruti Kulkarni @ to contribute to this project Contact Shruti Kulkarni @ to review or sponsor this project

current release Not Yet Published last reviewed release Not Yet Reviewed other releases