Are you concerned about the safety of your web applications? Do not worry, there is a solution now!
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Web applications and software have been a favorite spot for hackers to seek sensitive information and breach someone’s privacy. No matter how protected the site is or the amazing technology of futuristic apps you use, it, unfortunately, is a piece of cake for hackers to pass through. In the last few years, many surveys were conducted about privacy and hacking issues.
Surprisingly, web applications were in the top spots of being vulnerable to hackers and had the majority of victims. Should we not take action to prevent this?
You give hackers a non-protected website and system and as a result, you find yourself a victim. This results in important data being lost and potentially millions of dollars invested to get disrupted. Theft, blackmailing, financial issues, and many other problems can arise.
But there is a solution to keeping this information safe and secure using white-box cryptography. But before we jump into it, let’s understand where it all began, the major threats, challenges, and so on.
What is encryption?
Encryption is the process of scrambling readable text into a hidden code, or decryption key so that they can read it while making sure the real data is still safe. It helps and contributes to the protection of confidential data. It is used in carrying out options to develop a website, for calling or even texting an emoji to your friend.
A large amount of sensitive personal data is maintained and stored electronically, either in the cloud of your desktop or on servers that are still connected to the internet. It is impossible to conduct business without your personal information showing up in a company’s networked computer system. This is why it is important to understand how to keep that information confidential so that you have a boundary on what to share and what not to.
The importance of protecting your keys and the challenges that come with it:
The information shared on the internet must be encrypted to make sure no one can access it to harass others. This is where cryptography comes in. It is used to protect the communication between the web application and the host. It relies on secret keys and data. Although it may seem secure, it can shift the problem from protecting the data to protecting the keys that have the data. As a result, if hackers break into this encryption, they can access the keys and the data stored in them. So, having poor key management is similar to having none of it in the first place.
Also, hackers use techniques like reverse engineering, detangling programs to find these hard-coded keys and attack the servers. Then they use it for their own ends such as stealing money, blackmailing, and so on.
Hackers can also use these keys to commit fraudulent acts and forge signatures of trusted protections that are used for future attacks in the system. They can also commit cybercrimes such as deleting data of transactions or stealing sensitive data. To prevent all these, key protection is crucial.
One of the biggest challenges is storing these keys using cryptography. Secure elements, environments, and hardware protection are some of the strong aspects of cryptography keys, but most web applications are deprived of these technologies.
The easy functions and accessibility of using web browsers are the reason for the vulnerability of web application protection. Due to this, there are massive security issues. So keeping these keys safe is important as it can leak information about the host. But unfortunately, the solutions of keeping cryptographic keys safe on devices and PCs are not applicable as they do not have hardware security and support.
However, there is a solution to all these problems, the white-box cryptography:
White-box cryptography or encryption resists the reverse engineering threats to the cryptographic keys. This anti-reverse engineering is needed to ensure the code of the white-box remains intact. It is done through native machine-code, mangling Java Native interference, and Java byte-code obfuscation. Furthermore, these techniques are deployed to detect reverse-engineering tools and can be applied by the anti-mechanism for self-healing and verification of the data.
Why is white-box cryptography so useful?
- It resists the reverse engineering threats to the cryptographic keys.
- It ensures that the keys are always encoded and difficult to extract and tamper.
- White-box cryptography supports platforms such as macOS, Linux, and Windows.
- It can be easily upgraded.
- It has no restrictions when it comes to moderating the process from remote areas.
- Its multifunctionality removes the need for adding extra security to your hardware.
- It is cheap and easy to use.
Concerns of using white-box cryptography:
- There could be minor issues within this system as it is relatively new.
- There is no accurate value of the amount of strength it provides for the protection of data.
- It cannot be used in asymmetric encryption yet.
- As it is still under development, it should not be used on platforms that contain resources.
Overview
The keys of white-box cryptography are programmed in such a way that it is never exposed to anyone and it has been engineered to be resistant to side-channel attacks, ensuring maximum safety. It seems to be the solution to tackle all sorts of vulnerabilities that lie in web applications. During the time of testing, it showed great performance in safeguarding applications. As a result, it can secure the data to prevent threats and fraud, making a safer place to surf your data anywhere, anytime. Many platforms that offer white-box cryptography assure that it has been continuing to protect the users from threats that come with using web applications, delivering maximum security, and protecting data from malicious attacks.