Security Sanitization
Security sanitization is a cybersecurity practice that involves cleaning, validating, and neutralizing untrusted data inputs to prevent injection attacks and other security vulnerabilities. It ensures that user-supplied data is safe for processing by removing or escaping potentially malicious characters, scripts, or commands before they reach critical systems like databases, applications, or servers. This process is essential for protecting against threats such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and command injection.
Developers should implement security sanitization whenever handling user inputs, API data, or external sources to prevent common web vulnerabilities that can lead to data breaches, system compromise, or unauthorized access. It is critical in web development, API design, and database interactions to ensure data integrity and application security, particularly in environments like e-commerce, social media, or financial systems where sensitive information is processed. Learning this concept helps build robust, secure software that complies with security standards like OWASP guidelines.