Four Reasons to Use Application Security Services

The use of cloud-based services makes applications more accessible than ever, and this accessibility can present increasing cybersecurity risks. Application security services address these risks by identifying application vulnerabilities and mitigating them. Security specialists from Vumetric develop multi-factor authentication procedures, user authorization validation capabilities, and highly secure encryption methods. AILA leveraged Single Sign On, a security solution that enables employees to sign in with multi-factor authentication.

Automated tools

Automatic tools for application security can reduce the burden of a security team by automatically checking and fixing known vulnerabilities. Automated tools help identify vulnerable dependencies and offer suggestions for upgrades. Security breaches are primarily caused by application layer vulnerabilities, and automated security tools can help avoid future breaches. They can also manage rollbacks of application patches. Using such tools can make security much simpler for developers, and can help prevent serious security incidents.

Depending on your organization's needs and priorities, selecting the right automated tool can be challenging. Choose a tool that provides immediate feedback and syncs well with your organizational goals and project context. For example, static code analysis can be automated to identify and fix bugs as the code is compiled. Developers must still keep an eye on false positives to ensure that they are not accidentally triggered by a flaw in the code.

Design review

Security experts at Vumetric perform a comprehensive review of an application's design documentation. Working with the technical owner, architects, and developers, Vumetric verifies the security choices made throughout the application's design. These services can prevent costly changes to production or disastrous data leaks. Here are some common reasons to use a design review for application security services. Let's consider each in turn. In order to assess the effectiveness of your application security program, you need to know where to begin.

First, your security team must approve the design of the software before deployment to QA. Your application is developed in QA environments, not production. QA deployment does not involve application security. Once you're ready to move to production, you must submit a design review request to AppSec. During this stage, you must answer six questions, including whether a new architecture or software design is necessary. The next step in the process is static code analysis. You should resolve issues of high severity and flag false positives. Manual code review is carried out based on company standards and policies.

Code review

Performing a secure code review of a software application is a vital component of the application security process. Secure code review tools identify potential flaws in code, allowing you to prioritize threats and reduce the attack surface. Some scanning tools also include vulnerability remediation, which compares vulnerabilities to your company's security policies. This is especially important, as every change to your application increases the risk of loopholes, which can have a negative impact on your company's reputation.

Secure code reviews are conducted by using automated or manual tools. They attempt to identify security-related flaws in source code and fix them before they become dangerous. They do not attempt to find all flaws, but they do reveal the types of security issues that are present. The results of a secure code review can give developers insight into the types of issues present, allowing them to make their own software more secure.

Runtime application self-protection

Running from software, Runtime Application Self-Protection (RASP) protects applications by monitoring their internal state and data during their runtime. It blocks malicious behavior by watching the application's inputs and outputs in real-time. It can even detect when the application is trying to make a database call or run a shell command. This technology provides peace of mind for developers and helps them to identify vulnerable lines of code in their applications.

Runtime application self-protection (RASP) is a technique for preventing attacks during the execution of your application. It monitors incoming traffic and applies security measures based on what it sees. These services can work on various platforms and on all kinds of applications. For instance, AppSense works on Android and iOS, and is compatible with Java. Users don't need to worry about the performance impact of RASP, because it sits between the application and the server.

Software composition analysis

A key component of application security is the management of open-source components, including the vulnerability and license of open-source code. Since more than 50% of all application code is open source, companies need to keep abreast of these changes to maintain their competitive edge. Using Software Composition Analysis (SCA) is a good way to mitigate the risk of open-source code and to meet legal obligations. Moreover, an SCA scan will detect any dependencies between the open-source components and your application's code base.

Some application security testing tools include Software Composition Analysis, or SCA, to perform an automatic scan of an application's code base and related registries. SCA tools can identify open-source components, security vulnerabilities, license compliance data, and more. Some SCA tools even help remediate vulnerabilities found in open-source code. Other SCA tools are designed to discover all related components, supporting libraries, and direct dependencies of the application. These tools can produce a bill of materials, so your organization can compare the security risks of each component.