Web-application attacks: A survey

Attackers have an over-growing list of vulnerabilities to exploit in order to maliciously gain access to particular web applications. New vulnerabilities are being discovered all the time by computer security researchers, by attackers and even by users. Each time changes are made at any level of the web-application infrastructure; there is the potential for new vulnerabilities to be created. In this paper, we discuss about the vulnerabilities that today's web applications face and what work has been done to tackle these vulnerabilities. Firstly, different types of these vulnerabilities are presented by dividing them into relevant groups. Then a survey is presented in tabular form to present the research done in static and dynamic approaches to tackle web application vulnerabilities. After that, a survey dealing primarily with the research done in the field of cross-site scripting attacks is presented. Finally, future scope and pathway for research is suggested for preventing cross-site scripting attacks.