10 Tips for Building Fast and Secure .NET Web Applications

In today's fast-paced global market, every organization wants to retain web-app visitors for growth. To do so, companies do a lot of advertising, show appealing graphics, and more. But, all such is of no use if the web application doesn't load quickly and it’s not secure enough.

If you don’t assure fast speed and security to your client, it can lead to losing that customer. As a .NET Development company or developer, you must know the tips and tricks to fulfill client requirements and make the application lightning-fast and highly secure.

Here, you will find the top 10 tips to help you achieve speed and security objectives. Also, it will help you enhance your .NET development services. So, let’s get started.

Tips To Consider While .NET Web Application Development For Security

1: Configure Input Validation

The prime motive of every web application is to input some data and accordingly provide an output. But, sometimes, a malicious data input can lead to a breach of a SQL-based database. SQL injection is a top 10 OWASP attack that hackers use to exploit non-validated input fields. As a result, data gets breached, and companies face heavy monetary and reputation loss.

To prevent such attacks, you must configure validation on every input field. Whether your .NET web application inputs a name, password, address, or any other information, always use validation. Due to it, each input will get analyzed, and the app will only pass the legit ones to the system.

2: Encrypt and Hash Data

During .NET web application development, you must focus on securing data at all three levels – storage, communication channel, and process. To do so, you must use encryption at each level. It will help you prevent unauthorized persons from reading and modifying the information.

In addition, you must use an SSL/TLS certificate to create an encrypted channel between the server and the client's web browser. It will protect the users from man-in-the-middle and man-in-the-browser attacks. Furthermore, use hashing for storing passwords. With it, you will get double benefits, as no one will read the passwords, and authentication will get solidified.

3: Utilize Anti-Forgery Token

With the increasing attacker's potential, cross-site request forgery attacks are getting executed rapidly. Under it, hackers use token-authenticated user accounts to perform their malicious operations. To prevent it on your web application, consistently implement Anti Forgery Token during custom .NET development.

You have to put the token over the action. As a result, whenever the user clicks, two tokens will get generated. Among the two tokens, one will work as a cookie, and the other will be considered a hidden field. And whenever a user tries to execute an operation, the server will validate both tokens. If one of them is absent, the app will suspend the operation.

4: Constantly Update Framework, Libraries, and Dependencies

Pushing constant updates is a crucial task many .NET developers don't focus on. But as a .NET development company, you must always utilize the latest web application framework. And must provide upgradation to your clients to eliminate vulnerabilities in the previous versions.

Furthermore, you must consider using only legitimate libraries and dependencies rather than components available on third-party repositories. It will help you maintain data confidentiality, integrity, and availability.

Additionally, update yourself about Microsoft’s .NET announcements for patching vulnerable loopholes and preventing malicious actors over the web app.

5: Don’t Display the Error

No one can predict errors, but you must handle them properly while offering .NET development services. Otherwise, they can enable attackers to gain internal knowledge, such as the application structure, the framework version getting used, and more. And by gaining all such information, an attacker can get created specifically for your app.

To prevent it, you must use customErrors mode with the RemoteOnly parameter. It will aid you in displaying a custom message instead of the actual error to the end user. In addition, you can also create a custom error page to display whenever an error gets triggered. As a result, no internal data will get leaked.

Custom .NET Development Mechanisms, Offering High-Speed

1: Avoid Using ViewState in ASP.NET Core App

Viewstate is an advanced feature of the .NET framework that helps preserve page values while a user navigates. Whenever an end-user goes from one page to another, the previous page's data gets stored, leading to an increase in size.

When a web app uses Viewstate, it stores all data on the server, which increase the load. Due to it, overall performance degrades, as the server has enormous images, data, and structures to load. Therefore, to improve the speed and loading of your web app, configure EnableViewState=”false” at the control and page levels.

It will reduce the load on the server and increase performance.

2: Consider Output Caching

When your web server has to load overall or a bunch of the same data for every request, it has unnecessary pressure. And it’s one of the reasons behind performance degradation. To prevent it, you must use output caching.

The server will start storing the data required by everyone in cache memory using output caching. And whenever anyone sends a request, it will instantly load it. Primarily, such a mechanism gets used for loading images, texts, or static information.

The server will have less load, as it must send only HTML structure rather than heavy images, videos, and graphic files. Hence, one must use output caching to make the .NET web app fast.

3: Focus on Client-Side Optimization

Whenever you build a .NET web application, always consider the following improvements:

[if !supportLists]§ [endif]Bundle multiple files into a single file to reduce the server load. Due to it, servers don't have to run multiple threads to find different components of a single page. It will directly provide the complete folder.

[if !supportLists]§ [endif]Use minification to reduce the file sizes. Using it will remove whitespaces, variables with a shortened name, and comment size will decrease.

[if !supportLists]§ [endif]Configure JavaScript loading at the end. By doing so, users will see static data first, retaining it on the web app, and you will get plenty of time to load JavaScript.

[if !supportLists]§ [endif]Utilize a content delivery network to load web pages from the server nearest to the end user.

4: Do Pre-compilation of .NET Web Application

When a webpage doesn't get used for an extended period, the compiler loads it more than the expected time. And it causes retention and conversion rates to fall.

To optimize the speed, you must pre-compile the .NET web application. It will eliminate the compiler's task to compile a web application for each request. In addition, it will enable you to provide website content to IIS (Internet Information Server) server.

Moreover, it will minimize the boot time and load the application within the shortest time possible, mainly in seconds. However, it would help if you remembered that whenever you release an update, it must get pre-compiled too.

5: Implement Connection Pooling

With the help of connection pooling, you can reuse the connection rather than create a new connection for every database request. By implementing it, you can enable a user to remain connected to the database until its operations are not over.

The connection pool will hold the user inside it, allowing them to start and stop the connection but not terminate it. It will help to fetch information faster, as the link is already available. And after all the work, the TCP connection will get terminated, freeing the server resources.

As a result, the time taken by the application to create a new connection for every request gets eliminated.

Concluding Up

Data protection and fast speed are every organization's two essential requirements. As a .NET development company, you must fulfill your client's needs by focusing on the mentioned top tips.

To secure the .NET app, you must implement an input validation to prevent injection attacks, hashing, and encryption to disable attackers from reading any information. Further, your app must show a custom message instead of the exact error and must get updated with the latest patches and framework releases.

And to optimize the speed, disable the Viewstate, use connection pooling, pre-compile the application, and configure output caching. Considering all the tips, you can maintain data security and speed.