Don’t use easy to guess passwords. Use a password manager. I would say, even you should not know your password!
Do NOT display password in plain text anywhere!
Always use MFA – Multi Factor Authentication! I would write a separate article about various MFA techniques, strengths and weaknesses. And separate articles for web developers.
Always look for https when submitting sensitive information. Nowadays, this is a lesser threat because most websites are using https, but in some very rare scenarios some websites have no SSL but prompt for password. I came across one such website in the past 6 years. Don’t want to discuss the details, but contacted the owner and suggested some free alternatives such as Let’sEncrypt.
Do not connect to public wifi, use VPN.
Even private wifi, use VPN as much as possible.
Some websites such as FaceBook, Outlook, GMail allow verifying current sessions and activities. Review periodically.
NWebSec is a library, that I am familiar and have used in some web applications over the past 3 – 4 years.
Modern web browsers support several HTTP headers for security related purposes. For example, not to cache content, always require HTTPS etc… Most, if not all of these headers can be set at the webserver level instead of at the application level. There are various guides and blog posts for doing the same on HTTP servers.
This blog post is about using NWebSec for setting these headers in ASP.Net web applications. I won’t go over the entire list but I would mention few.
Configure the X-Frame-Options either at the application level or at the web server level, unless you have a need for your websites to be displayed in iframes of other websites.
Always use https by using the Content Security Policy, Strict Transport Security, Upgrade Insecure Requests.
Sometimes there would be a need to format the output of SQL statement into a format such as XML or JSON.
SQL Server has “FOR XML” clause. I have been familiar with SQL Server in the past. I had a similar use-case with MySQL. MySQL has functions for outputting as JSON.
Assume we have a table ‘Sample’ with columns Id, Name.
MySQL Table – Sample
Here is some sample data:
Sample data
We can use JSON_OBJECT to create JSON objects like this:
select json_object('id', id, 'name', name) from sample;
In the above line of code we are asking that for each row create a JSON document with the attribute names of ‘id’, ‘name’ and use the column values of id, name for values. The output looks like this:
JSON_OBJECT output
We can use JSON_ARRAYAGG for aggregating the values into a single result like this, and even works with grouping.
select json_arrayagg(id) from sample;
The following output would be obtained.
Output of JSON_ARRAYAGG
Combing these two functions to generate a single JSON document with array for each row of the output.
select json_arrayagg(json_object('id', id, 'name', name)) from sample;
How many of you think having advanced search capabilities for websites would be nice? Advanced search as in, for example – searching for content inside a word file or pdf file? Or may be search results showing up as soon as you start typing? Or may be showing search suggestions like Google but in the search box of your own websites?
Why would anyone need such a search?
Your customers or your website visitors would have the ability to search and find the information they need accurately and fast.
Some researchers have shown most users have a attention span of 7 – 8 seconds before going to the next website. You would have spent a lot of effort on Search Engine Optimization to get people to know your website. Now, if people can find what they are looking for quickly and accurately wouldn’t that help? May be the prospective visitor ends up being a sales lead and a customer.
This is the concept for an upcoming product. The product was internally code named as WebSearch but then wanted a unique name for the product and renamed as WebVeta. Veta in my mother tongue language Telugu means Hunt. In other words hunt for your files / content.
If this concept seems appealing and if you think you might have a need, please do contact.
Few example scenarios:
Scenario – 1: Let’s say you have a multi-nation presence and all of your company addresses are mentioned somewhere in the website. And someone from Australia wanted to find your U.S.A office address or phone number – how about they start typing “U.S.A pho” and the U.S.A phone number shows up?
Scenario – 2: Let’s say you have a global corporate website, a u.k based website, a U.S.A based website with URL’s between the 3 websites. But search inside each website shows results for only that website. What if the 3 websites can show consistent search results including advanced search capabilities across the three websites? i.e irrespective of on which website, your customer is can find information from across your global corporate websites.
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