WebGuard: Enhancing Web Security Through an Integrated Developer Platform

Abstract

This research presents the development of an integrated developer platform named ‘WebGuard’. The proposedintegrated platform provides solutions for SQL Injection, Cookie and Session Hijacking, Cross-Site Scripting (XSS),Phishing, Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks, and Malware. This study used input validation by generatingautomated regular expressions to detect SQL injection. In addition, stored procedures, parameterized queries, andcryptography are used to detect SQL injection. This platform used secure session ID generation and encrypted userauthentication to prevent cookie and session hijacking. Here, libsodium is utilized to decrypt user authentication. In thisstudy, the cross-site scripting (XSS) mitigation employs input validation, output encoding, and DOMPurify for advancedsanitization. Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) uses a Content Delivery Network (CDN) in Webguard that contains loadbalancing, rate limiting, and a comprehensive incident response plan. Webguard provided malware detection service byusing file type and size validation and heuristic checks. Furthermore, Phishing attacks are also prevented by the proposedplatform. The proposed platform successfully prevented 92.77% of SQL injection attacks out of 828 samples, and it detected6.16% of the provided samples. Webguard successfully prevented 95.12% of cookie and session hijacking attacks out of 41samples. The platform successfully prevented 90.95%, and detected 7.41% of XSS attacks, out of 243 samples. This platformsuccessfully prevented 81.82% of DDoS attacks out of 11 samples. In phishing detection, Webguard successfully detected92.64% out of 231 samples. Finally, this platform successfully detected 87.88% of malware out of 33 samples. Therefore,WebGuard promotes a safer online environment and makes secure development easier for programmers by combining thesefeatures in one location.KeywordsSQL Injection, Cookie & Session Hijacking, Cross Site Scripting, Phishing, DDOS, Malware, Web SecurityDOI:10.19139/soic-2310-5070-24571. IntroductionIn the modern world, web applications play a crucial role in our everyday lives. As time has been evolving, webtechnologies have become an integral part of us. Web applications are divided into two portions, client sideand server side. The client side can be developed using any of the frontend frameworks, and the server sidecan be developed using any of the backend frameworks. The frontend portion is seen on the UI. The backendis functionalized with the help of a relational (MySQL, PostgreSQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle Database,MariaDB, etc.) or non-relational database (MongoDB, Apache Cassandra, Redis, Oracle NoSQL Database, etc.).So, it may be possible that web applications might face cyber-attacks by attackers. It might be exploited fatally,such as by SQL injection, Cookie and Session Hijacking, Cross-Site Scripting (XSS), Phishing, Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks, and Malware.SQL Injection enables attackers to tamper with database queries, possibly gaining access to, altering, or removing∗Correspondence to: Md. Sazzad Hossain (Email: tanvirrafi1999@gmail.com). Department of Computer Science and Engineering,MBSTU. Santosh, Tangail, BangladeshISSN 2310-5070 (online) ISSN 2311-004X (print)Copyright © 2025 International Academic Press