Professional ASP.NET 2.0 Special Edition

Chapter 20. Security

Not every page that you build with ASP.NET is meant to be open and accessible to everyone on the Internet. Sometimes, you want to build pages or sections of an application that are accessible to only a select group of your choosing. For this reason, you need the security measures explained in this chapter. They can help protect the data behind your applications and the applications themselves from fraudulent use.

Security is a very wide-reaching term. During every step of the application-building process, you must, without a doubt, be aware of how mischievous end users might attempt to bypass your lockout measures. You must take steps to ensure that no one can take over the application or gain access to its resources. Whether it involves working with basic server controls or accessing databases, you should be thinking through the level of security you want to employ to protect yourself.

How security is applied to your applications is truly a measured process. For instance, a single ASP.NET page on the Internet, open to public access, has different security requirements than does an ASP.NET application that is available to only selected individuals because it deals with confidential information such as credit card numbers or medical information.

The first step is to apply the appropriate level of security for the task at hand. Because you can take so many different actions to protect your applications and the resources, you have to decide for yourself which of these ...