Web Services security is still a homegrown enterprise

In a recent Web services and SOA Development survey conducted by US-based
Evans Data Corp, leading software development and market research firm, security
continues to remain the most painful point of Web services developers. The
survey reveals that 23% of developers preferred building their own
authentication system to off-the-shelf packages, whereas 22% relied on SSL
encryption between machines.

Kerberos emerged as the most popular authentication mechanism with 7%
developers relying on it, followed by Microsoft's passport with 5% votes,
while Liberty Alliance scored the third position with a mere 1%.

Maintaining security in an environment that uses Web services is like walking
on a double-edged sword. While developers have to adopt mechanisms to protect
sites against malicious users, protecting users against privacy violations also
cannot be ignored.

25% of the respondents voted for 'authentication' as the biggest problem
and feel that confirming the identities of online users is the biggest hurdle.

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