How to Improve Azure Web Service with Front Door

The Internet is mostly accessed through web applications these days. Though a lot of companies provide us with rich and interactive native applications, our thumb automatically taps the browser icon if need to search anything on the internet. You need a web application to run everything from a large news website to a local pastry shop to a B2B application to manage your sales channels, because your users are distributed across several locations, and the application helps make your business available.

However, there is always a demand to maximize an application’s performance for your end-users and make sure the application is always-on across attacks. This is why you need an Azure Front Door, as it offers a variety of features to improve your application with its layers of caching, global distribution, acceleration, and failover. Find out everything you need to know about Azure Web Service with the Front Door in this article.

What Is Azure App Service?

The Azure App Service is a fully managed Platform as a Service that can be used to integrate  BizTalk Services, and Mobile Services into a single service while adding new capabilities that enables integration with cloud systems or on-premises. Furthermore, Azure App Service offers users the ability to:

◉ Build engaging iOS, Android, and Windows apps.

◉ Provision and deployment of web and mobile apps in seconds.

◉ Automation of business processes plus a visual design experience.

◉ Integration with Software as a Service (SaaS) applications like OneDrive, Office 365, Facebook, Twitter, etc., and on-premises applications.

Why Use Azure App Service?

Some of the key features of the Azure App Service are:

◉ The Azure App Service supports multiple languages and frameworks. This means support for ASP.NET, Java, Python, PHP, etc. You can also run PowerShell and other scripts as a background service.

◉ It features a managed production environment. This means that the App Service helps to automatically patch and maintain the OS and language frameworks for you while you spend time creating great apps.

◉ You can use App Service for containerization and docker functions. You can dockerize your app and also host a custom Linux or Windows container with an App Service.

◉ Azure Web Service offers DevOps This means you can set up continuous integration and deployment using Azure DevOps, Docker Hub, GitHub, Azure Container Registry, or BitBucket. It also promotes updates by testing and staging environments.

◉ It offers connections to SaaS platforms and on-premises data. You can use App Service to choose from over 50 connectors for SaaS services, enterprise systems, and internet services.

◉ Some of the other Azure Web Service features are global scale with high availability, application templates, security and compliance, Serverless code, Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code integration, API and mobile features, etc.

Types of Azure App Services

Azure runs App Services on fully managed virtual machines in either a shared or dedicated mode based on your App Service Plan. There are four types of Azure App Services:

◉ Web App: This is used for hosting web applications and websites (previously Azure Websites).

◉ API App: It is used for hosting the RESTful APIs.

◉ Logic App: It is used for sharing data across clouds, system integration, and business process automation.

◉ Mobile App: It is used to host mobile app backends previously delivered by Azure Mobile Services.

Benefits of Azure Web Service

◉ The deployment slots are free.

◉ It is very easy to deploy to, and it deploys faster than Cloud Services.

◉ It can combine multiple applications together to save money.

◉ It is extendable with site extensions.

◉ It has a built-in A/B testing feature.

Limitations of Azure Web Service

◉ It cannot use all the monitoring tools as you cannot install an agent.

◉ It has limited windows performance counters.

◉ It has no server access.

◉ It has limited VM sizes and specs to choose from.

What Is Azure Front Door?

Azure Front Door is a premium service that gives the application access to networks of edge nodes. With Azure Front Door as a service layer, you can improve your user’s network access performance without modifying the existing application. Furthermore, Azure Front Door offers diverse features like geographic load-balancing.

You can additionally use Azure Front Door to offload the overhead SSL encryption from your application server onto the Edge Node. Azure Front Door also provides firewall and DDoS protection.

Azure Web Service with Front Door (Coming Soon on CodeRed)

This is one of the best Azure Web Service courses that you can find out there. In this course, you will learn what Azure Web Apps are, how developers can use the Azure web apps to create and deploy the application, and how to scale and secure Azure Web Apps. You will also learn about the high availability of the application hosted on Azure Web Apps with Azure Front Door.

Source: eccouncil.org

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3 of the Most Common Python Security Vulnerabilities

Python is one of the fastest-growing programming languages in the world. According to Slashdata, there are 8.2 million active python users in the world. It is mostly used by Software Engineers but also by Mathematicians, Data Analysts, and students for various purposes like automation, artificial intelligence, big data analysis, and for investment schemes by the fintech companies. However, regardless of what computer language you use, the language is never secure on its own. It entirely depends on how you use the language. The same applies when it comes to Python, which is why Python Security is highly essential.

But, before we go there, let’s talk about what Python is.

What is Python?

Unlike other programming languages, Python is a general-purpose coding language. You can use it for other types of programming and software development, aside from web development. It is highly readable as it uses English keywords when other programming languages use punctuation. It also has fewer syntactical construction than the other language.

What are the benefits of Python?

Open Source

Python is an open-source programming language. Even the source codes for python are freely available to download and distribute for commercial use.

Easy to Use and Learn

With features like faster execution, readability, and code clarity provides a seamless experience.

Interpreted Language

The source code in python syntax as a whole is interpreted line by line at one go.

Numerous Libraries and Frameworks

Rich in libraries and frameworks, it supports web development, data science, and machine learning, therefore increasing the programmer’s productivity.

Helpful Communities

Python is more than 30 years old and has a more matured community of developers and users as compared to any programming language

Cross-Platform Integration

It has powerful control capabilities as it can invoke directly through C, C++, or Java. Python also processes XML and other markup languages with the same byte code.

Python is a top-notch programming language for aspirants with a technical and non-technical background. They can immediately start coding as it is like learning how to read and write.

How do developers use Python?

Python developers have the highest paid salaries in the IT industry. The average Python Developer salary in the United States is approximately $79,395 per year. Python can be effective in a myriad of areas, a few of which are:

1. Web-Development

2. Game Development

3. Data Science and Data Virtualization

4. Business Application

5. Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence

6. Big Data

7. GUI Desktop

Due to Python’s competence, it’s used in the areas mentioned above and in web-scraping applications, audio and video applications, cad applications, embedded applications, testing frameworks, and automating tasks.

The Most Common Python-based Security Threats

While Python is extremely helpful and widely used, it is not 100% secure from cyber threats like any scripting language. In fact, one of the most common is Python backdoor attacks. For example, Iran used a MechaFlounder Python backdoor attack against Turkey last year.

Here are some of the most common Python-based risks:

1. Input Injection

Some of the more popular injection attacks are SQL injection attacks and command injection attacks. These types of attacks can impact not just the language but the environment as a whole.

2. Parsing XML

It’s normal for files to load and parse XML files if you are in the habit of using an XML standard library module, especially external XML files. Most of these attacks are DoS and DDoS styled attacks that aim to crash the system instead of infiltrating it.

3. Temp Files

Testing a file is always good; however, beware of creating temp files using the mltemp() function as a different process may also create a file with this name to attempt to load the wrong data or expose other temporary data.

How to Secure Your Digital Ecosystem from Python-based Vulnerabilities?

It has become important to secure your network and data with the increase in data breaches regularly.

Here are some ways you can ensure Python security:

1. Always use the latest version of Python

2. Use a virtual environment when installing new packages

3. Never commit anything with a password or API key in it

4. Double-check your code for any malicious material

5. Beware of SQL injections

6. Always keep your server updated

However, if you are looking for a more detailed approach to Python security, take a look at EC-Council’s Microdegree program.

Source: eccouncil.org

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