Open Access

ARTICLE

Hybrid Computational Modeling for Web Application Security Assessment

by Adil Hussain Seh¹, Jehad F. Al-Amri², Ahmad F. Subahi³, Md Tarique Jamal Ansari¹, Rajeev Kumar^4,*, Mohammad Ubaidullah Bokhari⁵, Raees Ahmad Khan¹

1 Department of Information Technology, Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Lucknow, 226025, Uttar Pradesh, India
2 Department of Information Technology, College of Computers and Information Technology, Taif University, Taif, 21944, Saudi Arabia
3 Department of Computer Science, University College of Al Jamoum, Umm Al Qura University, Makkah, 21421, Saudi Arabia
4 Department of Computer Applications, Shri Ramswaroop Memorial University, Barabanki, 225003, Uttar Pradesh, India
5 Department of Computer Science, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, 202002, Uttar Pradesh, India

* Corresponding Author: Rajeev Kumar. Email:

Computers, Materials & Continua 2022, 70(1), 469-489. https://doi.org/10.32604/cmc.2022.019593

Received 18 April 2021; Accepted 19 May 2021; Issue published 07 September 2021

Abstract

Transformation from conventional business management systems to smart digital systems is a recurrent trend in the current era. This has led to digital revolution, and in this context, the hardwired technologies in the software industry play a significant role However, from the beginning, software security remains a serious issue for all levels of stakeholders. Software vulnerabilities lead to intrusions that cause data breaches and result in disclosure of sensitive data, compromising the organizations’ reputation that translates into, financial losses as well. Most of the data breaches are financially motivated, especially in the healthcare sector. The cyber invaders continuously penetrate the E-Health data because of the high cost of the data on the dark web. Therefore, security assessment of healthcare web-based applications demands immediate intervention mechanisms to weed out the threats of cyber-attacks. The aim of this work is to provide efficient and effective healthcare web application security assessment. The study has worked with the hybrid computational model of Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) based on Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal-Solutions (TOPSIS) under the Hesitant Fuzzy (HF) environment. Hesitant fuzzy sets provide effective solutions to address decision making problems where experts counter hesitation to make a decision. The proposed research endeavor will support designers and developers in identifying, selecting and prioritizing the best security attributes for web applications’ development. The empirical analysis concludes that Robustness got highest priority amongst the assessed security attributes set followed by Encryption, Authentication, Limit Access, Revoke Access, Data Validation, and Maintain Audit Trail. The results of this research endeavor depict that this proposed computational procedure would be the most conversant mechanism for determining the web application security. The study also establishes guidelines which the developers can refer for the identification and prioritization of security attributes to build more secure and trustworthy web-based applications.

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Keywords

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