Every Web Developer Should Know These 10 Security Basics. Most Don't.

I did a security audit of 15 web applications built by experienced developers. Every single one had at least 3 of these 10 vulnerabilities. One had 8 out of 10. These aren't exotic attack vectors. They're basics. And they're in your code right now. 1. SQL Injection (Still. In 2026.) I thought we'd solved this. We haven't. // I found this in a production codebase last month: const query = `SELECT * FROM users WHERE email = ' ${ req . body . email } '` ; await db . query ( query ); // Attack: email = "'; DROP TABLE users; --" // Result: your user table is gone The fix is so simple it hurts: const query = ' SELECT * FROM users WHERE email = $1 ' ; await db . query ( query , [ req . body . email ]); // The database driver handles escaping. It's impossible to inject. Rule: NEVER concatenate user input into a query string. Use parameterized queries. Every ORM and database driver supports this. There is no excuse. 2. XSS (Cross-Site Scripting) User submits a comment: <script>document.location