Web Application Security: What Are the Risks, and How Can You Better Protect Your Infrastructure?
Customer portals, supplier extranets, remotely accessible ERP systems, MES interfaces, and supply chain management tools: Web applications have become essential to the operations of industrial companies.
This openness facilitates communication but also increases the attack surface. An application exposed to the Internet poses a risk not only to the data it processes. Depending on its architecture and connections, it can also become an entry point to other digital assets within the information system.
For a mid-sized company, a compromised web application is therefore not just a digital incident. It can compromise the digital supply chain, disrupt the continuity of a business service, and erode the trust of customers, suppliers, or clients. For organizations subject to NIS2, these risks also fall under broader obligations related to risk management, business continuity, and supply chain security.
Web web application security is therefore not limited to fixing vulnerabilities in the code. It also involves managing access, data flows, dependencies, and hosting infrastructure, as well as the ability to quickly detect abnormal activity.
Why are web applications particularly vulnerable?
A web application rarely operates in isolation. It communicates with databases, identity services, APIs, third-party components, or other business applications.
In the industry, these integrations may involve an ERP, an MES, logistics tools, or services accessible to suppliers and service providers.
A security breach can therefore have consequences that extend beyond the affected application: access to sensitive information, theft of credentials, service outage or an attempt to move on to other resources within the IT system.
So the right question isn't just "Is this app secure?", but also: What does it provide access to, and what would be the consequences if it were compromised?
Within this scope, Scalair does not intervene in the development or business logic of the code. Scalair focuses on securing data flows and the hosting infrastructure—that is, the container—so that the application runs in a segmented, controlled, and monitored environment.
What are the main security risks for web applications?
Frameworks such as OWASP regularly highlight access control flaws, misconfigurations, injections, and risks associated with software components. However, certain vulnerabilities are less obvious when they are located within the application itself.
Access rights that are too broad
A compromised account becomes particularly vulnerable when it has privileges that exceed what is actually necessary.
The principle of least privilege, strong authentication, and regular reviews of access permissions help limit the scope of potential actions in the event of a compromise.
Forgotten APIs and services
APIs facilitate communication between applications, partners, and internal services. As projects progress, some interfaces may remain active even though they are rarely used or inadequately monitored.
Maintaining an inventory of exposed services and removing access points that are no longer needed directly helps reduce the attack surface.
Configurations and dependencies that are difficult to manage
Servers, libraries, certificates, software components, third-party services, and network policies also play a role in application security.
A configuration that is too permissive or a component that is no longer maintained can create a vulnerability, even if the application's business logic has not changed.
Legacy applications that are difficult to upgrade
In industrial environments, certain business applications may remain in use for ten or fifteen years. An ERP system or an interface linked to the MES may be essential to operations but cannot be modernized quickly.
The goal is not necessarily to replace them immediately, but to better control their exposure through network segmentation, traffic filtering, access restrictions, and a suitable hosting environment.
Can a compromised web application threaten production?
It all depends on the architecture of the information system.
If an application server communicates freely with numerous internal environments, its compromise can facilitate lateral movement to other resources.
In the industrial sector, the separation between IT and OT environments is therefore essential. An administrative application, a supplier portal, or a logistics tool should not unnecessarily provide access to PLCs and production systems.
This segmentation helps contain an incident and limit its impact on logistics flows, equipment availability, and operational continuity.
What security measures should be put in place to secure a web application?
Protection is based on several complementary layers.
A Managed WAF (Web Application Firewall) serves as an essential first line of defense for an exposed application. By analyzing and filtering requests before they reach the servers, it helps block certain attempts to inject code or exploit known vulnerabilities before they reach the infrastructure.
However, it must be part of a broader approach that combines:
- limiting accounts and privileges;
- the segmentation of networks and flows;
- maintaining the security of the systems;
- protecting servers and endpoints with an EDR;
- the centralization and monitoring of security events;
- backups tailored to a remediation strategy.
The goal is twofold: to reduce the likelihood of a breach and to limit an attacker's ability to move laterally within the information system.
Web Application Hosting and Security: The Issue of Sovereignty
The hosting environment directly contributes to an application’s level of security.
For certain sensitive or legacy applications, a private cloud makes it possible, in particular, to isolate resources, better control data flows, and maintain an architecture suited to technical constraints that are difficult to scale.
The data jurisdiction is also a strategic consideration. Hosting a mission-critical application in a sovereign cloud operated in France by a provider subject to European law rather than U.S. jurisdiction helps strengthen legal protection against extraterritorial laws such as the Cloud Act.
For the industry, this issue directly concerns trade secrets, technical data, customer databases, and, more broadly, strategic digital assets.
Making Web Application Security an Ongoing Process
An application that is secure today will not automatically remain secure tomorrow. Usage patterns evolve, new APIs emerge, permissions change, and certain components become obsolete.
Web application security therefore requires an ongoing approach: identifying which services are actually exposed, managing their traffic, limiting privileges, keeping the infrastructure up to date, and monitoring events that could indicate a compromise.
For an industrial company, the goal is as much to protect an application as it is to prevent it from becoming a gateway to more critical assets.
Scalair helps companies secure, host, and operate the infrastructure that supports their applications and digital assets. Talk to our teams to assess your exposed applications, their hosting environment, and the protection solutions best suited to your situation.
