For the first time in the survey’s history, respondents to the Allianz Risk Barometer cited cyber incidents as their number one concern for 2022. This worry isn’t surprising, considering that cybercriminals are becoming increasingly bold in their exploits. Lately, no one has been exempt from these threats or malicious actions, including large corporations and infrastructure suppliers, as well as mid-sized companies, small businesses, and individuals.
The mushrooming threat level has caused many companies developing secure applications, especially in the web arena, to rethink the processes they use to build their products. Instead of treating data security as something separate from the development process, the current trend is for developers to integrate it into projects in the early stages and allow it to play a significant role during the software development life cycle.
This shift in thinking, the introduction of DevSecOps, puts code security at the same level of importance as the application’s functionality. After all, if vulnerable open source code finds its way into applications designed to handle sensitive data, the final product becomes more of a liability than an asset.
Kiuwan is a comprehensive application and web application security tool that empowers speed, minimizes resource allocation, and mitigates development time commitments. The industry-leading code security solutions help companies build security into their applications from the ground up.
More developers are starting to view Application Security (AppSec) as a means to combat the increasing frequency of cyberattacks. However, first, they must determine and confirm the current state of their AppSec program, if one exists. Once that step is complete, developers should look at the tools they use to automate software development from a security perspective. Finally, companies must look to the future and begin planning and implementing systems to combat threats looming on the horizon.
Integrating security into the continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipeline involves understanding what is happening within the process and determining how it addresses potential code vulnerabilities. Unfortunately, cyber attackers are finding new ways to exploit today’s coding trend that relies heavily on open source to build complex applications.
This growing threat to sensitive areas, such as financial and banking security, is forcing developers to examine their current AppSec programs and look for ways to shore up any measures found to be lagging. Teams with the right mix of security-minded professionals can help ensure threat assessments play a critical role in shaping the product throughout its development.
Starting with AppSec, companies should focus on what is currently working for them while seeking ways to improve their existing processes. The goal is to achieve stability, understanding which aspects of AppSec are working towards eliminating code vulnerabilities, and maintaining and strengthening those key facets.
To stay current with competitive trends in the software supply chain, companies should strive for AppSec maturity, which involves increasing code quality through the implementation of automated tools that analyze potential security risks, including third-party vulnerabilities.
Modern applications contain hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions, lines of code. In addition, dependencies on various third-party software make it nearly impossible to continue tracking security issues manually. Therefore, moving from stability to AppSec maturity typically requires the use of automated tools to check for security issues throughout an application’s software development life cycle (SDLC).
Two prominent tools permeate AppSec development:
By employing both tools, developers can enhance their efforts to integrate robust security into their code throughout its entire development life cycle.
SAST pinpoints inherent security vulnerabilities in the code. The automated program informs programmers on the potential severity of issues as they write code, offering guidance on the best way to eliminate or mitigate possible security problems.
Additionally, since developers increasingly depend on third-party, often open-source, code to develop applications at the speeds required by the marketplace, SCA effectively complements SAST by examining all third-party code for vulnerabilities.
From now on, it is evident that the threat landscape will only get worse. As a result, organizations must intensify their efforts to adopt an AppSec mindset that will counter the onslaught of cyberattacks. Most companies are now aware that investing in building robust AppSec programs enables their teams to achieve higher code quality while developing on a foundation of tighter security.
The risks and threats involved with processing sensitive information over the web are genuine. Although the designers of the Internet never intended it to be a secure way to transmit data, this awareness emerged later, following the advent of e-commerce. Now, most users take security for granted and seem surprised when another data breach occurs. However, those in the development sphere know that, without significant effort on the part of the software development community to adopt AppSec best practices, the threats could easily overwhelm.
Kiuwan’s start-to-finish AppSec solution features some of the most effective tools recognized by the industry for ensuring code security throughout the product development process.
The core of Kiuwan’s effectiveness lies in two components:
• Code Security (SAST) scans code to identify vulnerabilities, in compliance with industry security standards like CWE, OWASP, PCI, CERT, and SANS.
• Insights (SCA) reduces the risk from third-party components, remediates vulnerabilities, and ensures license compliance. In addition, the program aligns with the NIST database.
Kiuwan products offer benefits that help teams get their AppSec programs up and running or strengthen existing ones.
• Support for over 30 programming languages
• Full integration into the current DevOps environment
• On-site, cloud, and hybrid solutions
ª Secure sharing of results with all team members
Waiting until the end of a project to start thinking about security is too late. In today’s threat landscape, the only logical choice is to make a vigorous AppSec program a prominent feature in software products as teams develop them.
Join the over 300 leading companies across various industries that use Kiuwan to manage the development of their application libraries. They gain the ability to make informed decisions about software security, which improves their time to market and their ability to meet key performance indicators.
Reach out to the Kiuwan sales team today to discuss how an enhanced AppSec program can help leverage the benefits of application security built from the ground up.
