Examining your applications for security weaknesses is critical as attackers have become more sophisticated and common nowadays. Application security is the process of strengthening the security of apps by identifying, repairing, and enhancing their vulnerabilities.
While much of this occurs during the development process, it also involves tools and approaches for protecting deployed programmes. However, there could be many reasons that add to the importance of application testing, and security is above all. The testing process is very critical as hackers attack increasingly target applications.
Due to such smart attacks, application security has become a hot topic and requirement for every field. Numerous web app security solutions are available to safeguard various aspects of your application portfolio, from restricting coding modifications to detecting accidental coding dangers, evaluating encryption choices, auditing permissions and access rights and finally securing your web server. There are specialised technologies for mobile applications, network-based applications, and web application-specific firewalls.
Table of Content:
- Introduction
- Why is web application security critical?
- Tools for the security of web applications
- Security issues with applications
- 3 effective security best practices for web applications
- Conclusion
Why is web application security critical?
Veracode’s State of Software Security Vol. 10 research found that 83% of the 85,000 programmes it analysed included at least one security issue with sensitive data. Many had significantly more, as their analysis discovered a total of 10 million problems, and 20% of all apps had at least one critical flaw. While not every one of those issues poses a substantial security risk, their sheer number is concerning.
The earlier and more thoroughly you can identify and fix security concerns during the software development process, the safer your organisation will be. Because everyone makes mistakes, the difficulty is to identify them quickly. For instance, a typical coding issue may permit the use of unverified inputs. If a hacker discovers this error, it can result in SQL injection attacks and subsequent data leaks.
Application security tools that interface with your application development environment can simplify and expedite this process and workflow. These technologies are especially beneficial if you conduct compliance audits, as they can save time and money by identifying issues before the auditors notice them.
Rather than that, we now have new working methods called continuous deployment and integration that allow for daily, and in some cases hourly, app refinement. This means that security technologies must adapt to an ever-changing world and swiftly identify code vulnerabilities with the help of cross-site scripting. This situation is known as a cross-site request forgery that can cause “attack vectors”.
Numerous of these categories are still in their infancy and make use of relatively new products. This demonstrates how rapidly the market evolves as attacks get more complex, more difficult to detect, and more capable of wreaking havoc on your networks, data, and company brand.
Tools for the security of web applications
While there are various categories of application security software, the focus here is on two: security testing tools and application shielding technologies. The former is a more established market, with dozens of well-known vendors, including industry titans IBM, CA, and MicroFocus. Gartner has rated the importance and success of these tools in its Magic Quadrant. IT Central Station and other review sites have been able to survey and rank these vendors as well.
Gartner classifies security testing tools into five major categories, which can help you select what you need to defend your application portfolio:
- Static testing, which analyses code at regular intervals throughout its development. This enables developers to examine their code as they write it, ensuring that no security vulnerabilities are introduced during development.
- Dynamic testing, in which running code is analysed. This is more beneficial since it can replicate attacks on production systems and expose more complicated attack patterns including the utilisation of many systems.
- Interactive testing is a hybrid of static and dynamic testing.
- Mobile testing is optimised for mobile environments and may explore how an attacker can utilise the mobile operating system and the apps that run on it in their totality.
- Another approach to thinking about testing tools is in terms of how they are delivered: on-premises or via a SaaS-based subscription service that allows you to submit your code for an online examination. Some even combine the two.
One limitation is that each testing provider supports a different set of programming languages. Certain vendors limit their tools to one or two languages. (Generally, Java is a safe bet.) Others are more immersed in the world of Microsoft.Net. The same is true for integrated development environments (IDEs): certain tools work as plug-ins or extensions to certain IDEs, making it as simple as pressing a button to test your code.
Security issues with applications
Part of the issue is that IT must satisfy multiple masters in order to safeguard their applications. They must first stay up with the rapidly growing security and application development technologies market, but this is only the beginning.
Additionally, IT must anticipate business requirements as more organisations invest more heavily in digital products and their application portfolio requirements evolve to include more complicated infrastructure. Additionally, they must grasp how SaaS services are built and secured. This has been a problem, as a recent poll of 500 IT managers revealed that the average degree of understanding of software design is deficient. According to the research, “CIOs may find themselves in the firing line with senior leadership as they are held accountable for decreasing complexity, remaining within budget, and the rate at which they modernise to meet business expectations.”
Finally, application security may be delegated to numerous distinct teams inside your IT operations: The network team may be responsible for administering web application firewalls and other network-centric technologies, the desktop team may be responsible for administering endpoint-oriented testing, and various development teams may have additional responsibilities. This makes it difficult to recommend a single product that will meet everyone’s demands, which contributes to the market’s fragmentation.
3 effective security best practices for web applications
Consider a container platform when you begin to protect both old and new apps. This will guarantee that your organisation is aligned with the best practices for keeping business-critical applications safe.
Your applications are vulnerable to attacks from both the outside and the inside. Cyber-attacks continue to increase and compound your security issues; the threat model has shifted considerably since many of your legacy applications were originally created. The use of susceptible components in development has risen to prominence. For instance, do you make use of data pertaining to European citizens? Attacks on web apps are a common method of committing data breaches, and with GDPR in force, you might face fines of up to 4% of global annual revenues if European data is compromised.
Add zero-day attacks, new DDoS attacks organised by AI, Ransomware’s never-ending reign of terror, and the risk of brand damage, and it’s clear that safeguarding your applications from the start is critical for marketplace survival.
Everyone understands that layered security is vital – no single factor can protect you against the numerous exploits available on the dark web. Nevertheless, your organisation may implement a good plan for safeguarding mission-critical apps by adhering to best practices.
1. Containerize your application
The best method to begin securing your application is to confine it within a container. The native security features and default configurations of a container provide it with a stronger security posture; when your application runs inside a container, it automatically inherits that posture.
Consider a container as a protective wrapper that isolates your programme from other containers and the host computer system; this isolation protects your software against infection and malicious use. By default, containers are configured with seccomp security profiles and security policies to separate application processes from the host and operating system. The default container manages the environment in which your application runs securely.
Additionally, containers act as gatekeepers for your application. Containers protect against unwanted access by people or other resources using granular role-based access controls and read-only environments. Containers adhere to the least privilege principle, which is a crucial component of the zero-trust security architecture that underpins cybersecurity. Living inside a container significantly minimises the attack surface area of your application.
2. Begin with the programmer
Because your application begins with the developer, it’s only natural that application security begins with the developer as well. Container platforms provide seamless security in the background, ensuring that security is always present – simply not in the way of your developer. A container platform, such as Docker Enterprise, provides a container engine and the necessary integrated security features for signing and certifying container images that house your applications when your developers check code into source code management. Cryptographic digital signatures verify the container’s provenance and authenticity, ensuring that the application has not been updated or infected.
The container platform includes security features that seamlessly integrate your developers’ efforts without requiring them to alter their processes. This increases the security of the development process and your application without sacrificing performance or efficiency.
3. Conduct a vulnerability scan
The only way to be certain that your applications are secure is to have an automated procedure that verifies them at each stage of development. Docker’s container platform does vulnerability assessments on your container, comparing the versions of your programming resources to those in vulnerability databases. The vulnerability scans give another layer of visibility and insight into the security state of your applications throughout their development and production lifecycles. Additionally, once photos have been scanned and cleaned, you may rapidly and automatically advance valid containers to the next stage of development and ultimately into production.
This automated procedure ensures that vulnerabilities are identified early in the process and that they are patched continuously when new vulnerabilities emerge. Container solutions feature rapid, safe patching procedures that allow you to combat security breaches and comply with regulations without hindering development.
Conclusion
With an auditable chain of custody, container systems enable you to secure applications, create them securely, and check and certify their integrity from the start and throughout the application’s lifecycle. Using the possibilities of a container platform with integrated security may reduce time to market by proactively identifying and fixing vulnerabilities without slowing down the development to operations lifecycle.
Consider a container platform when you begin to protect both old and new apps. This will guarantee that your organisation is aligned with the best practices for keeping business-critical applications safe. Additionally, you can comply with security standards, industry and government regulations since container development advances in lockstep with your compliance requirements.
