A Modular Approach to Data Validation in Web Applications

Data that is not validated or poorly validated is the root cause of a number of serious security vulnerabilities affecting applications.

This paper presents a modular approach to performing thorough data validation in modern web applications so that the benefits of modular component based design; extensibility, portability and re-use, can be realised.

It starts with an explanation of the vulnerabilities introduced through poor validation and then goes on to discuss the merits of a number of common data validation methodologies. Finally, a modular approach is introduced together with practical examples of how to implement such a scheme in a web application.

Implementing such a modular approach contributes to the application being loosely coupled and ensures that it can safely be extended and components reused, without incurring unnecessary development time to re-implement validation routines.

Download the paper in PDF format here.