Best Security Practices for Web Software Infrastructure

Modern web software infrastructures require an advanced security approach due to expanding attack surfaces and increasingly complex ecosystems. Both zero trust strategies and cloud-centric architectures turn security into a holistic process integrated into the entire lifecycle rather than a single layer. This article provides guidance across a broad framework, from strategic security perspectives to architectural models, real use cases and best practices.

The Growing Strategic Importance of Security

As digitalization accelerates, software systems handle more integrations, data operations and user interactions. This increases the threat surface and creates new risk vectors. Areas such as API security, data privacy, MFA, RBAC/ABAC and CI/CD security are now mission-critical. Security has become a shared responsibility across IT and business units alike.

The Strategic Value of Security

Security affects operational continuity, customer trust, brand reputation and regulatory compliance. If web infrastructure security is compromised, losses emerge not only technically but also financially and strategically.

Business Value Dimension

Reducing the risk of operational disruptions.
Lowering data breach costs through PII protection.
Sustaining development speed through secure DevOps.
Improving customer trust scores.

Zero Trust Approach

The zero trust architecture requires authentication regardless of user or service location, reducing lateral movement risk in case an attacker breaches the internal network.

Architecture Models: API, iPaaS/ESB, ETL/ELT, Event-Driven

Modern infrastructures incorporate various data flow and integration models. Security must be applied to all these layers.

API-Based Architecture (REST, GraphQL, gRPC)

Authentication via OAuth 2.0 or OpenID Connect.
Rate limiting and throttling mechanisms.
PII masking through the API gateway.
Schema validation (JSON Schema, GraphQL SDL).

iPaaS / ESB Integration Layers

Use of mTLS in communication channels.
Secure archival of event logs.
Data classification within integration flows.

ETL/ELT Data Pipelines

Sensitive field masking (e.g., PII masking).
Source-target verification and checksum controls.
Encryption-at-rest for sensitive columns.

Event-Driven Architecture

Minimal data principle in event payloads.
Event signing (signature-based validation).
Topic-policy-based access (Kafka ACL, SNS/SQS IAM policy).

Security, Compliance and Data Governance

Security is not limited to technical measures; it requires a comprehensive management approach including policies, processes and standards.

Identity and Access Management (IAM)

MFA for multi-layer authentication.
RBAC and ABAC for contextual access.
Short-lived token strategy for service accounts.

Data Governance

PII classification and dynamic masking.
Data lifecycle management.
Encrypted audit log storage.

Compliance

Data minimization aligned with GDPR/KVKK.
Encryption policies aligned with ISO 27001.
Regulation-driven risk assessments.

Performance, Scalability and Observability

Security layers must not degrade performance. Therefore, measurement, optimization and observability are essential.

Performance Metrics

TTFB (Time to First Byte)
TTI (Time to Interactive)
p95/p99 latency measurements

Observability and Logging

Distributed tracing (Jaeger, OpenTelemetry).
Security event monitoring via SIEM.
Anomaly detection policies.

Scalability

WAF usage for edge-layer attack mitigation.
Traffic optimization via load balancing.
Cache and CDN layers.

Real Scenarios: O2C, P2P, S&OP / MRP

Security influences not only technical components but also process flows within enterprise operations.

O2C (Order to Cash)

PCI-DSS compliant payment flows.
Fraud detection model integration.

P2P (Procure to Pay)

MFA in supplier verification steps.
Signature validation in e-invoice integrations.

S&OP / MRP

Role-based separation of planning data.
Masking sensitive stock information.

KPI and ROI in Security

Defining KPIs is essential to measure the return on security investments.

Key KPIs

Mean Time to Detect (MTTD).
Mean Time to Respond (MTTR).
Failed login attempts ratio.
API rate-limit violation trends.

ROI Calculation Approaches

Breach cost × prevention rate.
Improvement in operational downtime.
Reduction in reputational risk scores.