Experimental analysis of attacks against web services and countermeasures

Web services are increasingly becoming an integral part of next-generation web applications. A Web service is defined as a software system designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network based on a set of XML standards. This new architecture and set of protocols brings new security challenges such as confidentiality, integrity, anonymity, authentication, authorization and availability of requested services. Vulnerabilities in Web services are very dangerous since they can be used by attackers to damage the company's information system and steal confidential data. In this paper, we carry out an experimental analysis of attacks against Web services. We demonstrate experimentally three types of attacks and we reveal dangerous techniques and tools used by attackers that administrators have to prevent. Moreover, we study the effects of these attacks by observing their impact on Information System data and resources. Finally, we propose general countermeasures to prevent and mitigate such attacks.