Web Services Dangers

Costs per attack are highly dependent upon the nature and type of applications under scrutiny. When performing an assessment of Web services dangers, one must look at the value of the assets at risk. "Web Services wrappers" can wrap nearly any type of application, and the value of information in an Excel spreadsheet tracking customer data may be just as valuable as the information stored in an SAP system. To assess the value of the information one must consider the costs of the information being erased, being corrupted, being compromised or being leaked to the press or competition.

The costs of Web services threats range across the board and can be highly measurable or highly subjective. Some costs are immediate and some costs recur for years.

Assessing Both the "hard" and "soft" costs of Web services dangers

Below are some common costs to consider and some examples of how these costs can be damaging.

A detailed breakdown of the costs of Web services dangers

In the most recent CSI/FBI Report on Cyber Security (2004), they reported that each security incident was in excess of $500,000 per incident. This represented mostly hard costs and not soft costs which would likely add significantly more impact.

Assessing the Risk Presented by Web Services Dangers

Use the Right Tools...

The bottom-line issue is that if you are using or plan to use Web Services, your organization will be subject to danger in the form of Web services attacks. The success rate of these attacks will depend upon the proper tools and procedures you put in place. Use of only traditional technologies greatly increases the chance of a security risk. Use of the proper tools and procedures to specifically deal with Web Services security will decrease the likelihood of a successful breach.

For More Information

Understand the implications of Web services dangers in the context of an overall SOA management plan: read the free white paper, SOA Primer: Comprehensive Runtime Governance from Actional