Websites are problematic for cybersecurity because they’ve grown from a simple information page to interactive scripted content management systems that act as the front end for an organization’s database. It’s essentially a public facing application that’s allowed to access and change company data. This makes websites popular targets for hackers and many exploits have been developed to bypass security controls, such as SQL injection and Cross Site Scripting.
Poorly coded websites are a serious security concern. Correct coding practices must be followed and then the site must be tested for vulnerabilities and remediated before going live on the Internet. An excellent source for best practices is the nonprofit Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP). Manual code review and automated vulnerability testing software such as Acunetix is part of a mature system development life cycle.