What is AppSec?
The process of locating, fixing, and preventing security flaws at the application level in hardware, software, and development processes is referred to as application security, or AppSec for short. It includes guidance on measures for application design and development through the whole lifecycle, including after the application has launched.
Application security is crucial because apps in today’s world are frequently accessible through a variety of networks and connected to the cloud, which increases the applications’ susceptibilities to security breaches and attacks. There is an ever-increasing amount of pressure and motivation to maintain security throughout the entire application stack. This is due, in part, to the increased frequency with which hackers target applications with their exploits in comparison to times gone by. Testing for application security can uncover any holes that exist at the application level, which can help avoid attacks like this.
AppSec Best Practices
The best practices for application security should be implemented right from the beginning of the software development lifecycle, and the whole product team should commit to using them.
In order to ensure the safety of your software applications, make sure to follow these best practices:
Create an application security risk profile in order to determine probable security flaws and vulnerabilities.
Locate and fix any security flaws that may exist in the software program you are using.
Find and fix the security flaws that are present in open-source and third-party software.
Make sure you’re using the appropriate application security tools.
Make sure that your staff receives training on application security.
The use of best practices for application security will reduce business risks, protect your customers, and safeguard data.
AppSec Standards
The identification, prevention, and elimination of software flaws that might compromise software security are the goals of secure coding standards. These standards take the form of rules and recommendations:
CERT: CERT is a collection of safe coding standards that target insecure coding techniques and undefined behaviors in C, C++, and Java that may lead to security issues. These standards were developed by the Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT).
The Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) is a list that may be used to identify software security flaws in C, C++, Java, and C#.
DISA-STIG is an acronym that stands for the Defense Information Systems Agency’s Software Technical Implementation Guide.
The Open Web Application Security Project, also known as OWASP, ranks the most significant threats to the security of web applications. The OWASP Top Ten, which lists the ten threats to application security that are deemed to be the most serious, is the organization’s most widely used resource.
ISO/IEC TS 17961 is a safe coding standard for C that was developed to identify vulnerabilities in computer security.
At an early stage in the development cycle, a static code analyzer should be utilized to enforce safe coding standards. This will provide the best possible resolution to any potential security issues.
Where’s AppSec Going
The State of Application Security was published by Forrester in the year 2022. In this paper, researchers observed trends and made estimates regarding the future of application security. When one considers the software development life cycle (SDLC), “shifting left” is always and must be the primary focus of their attention. This makes perfect sense: you want to uncover security flaws sooner so that you may save time and money and reduce the amount of risk exposure in production. However, if there is one thing that people in the year 2022 have learned as a result of recent emergent threats, it is that it does not matter how hard you try to secure your applications before they go into production; you still need to have runtime protections in place for the applications that are critical to your business. According to the findings of the Forrester analysis, the concept of “shift everywhere,” which encompasses shifting in both the left and right directions, appears to be gaining acceptance. According to research by Forrester, 58% of senior security decision-makers around the world want to raise the amount of money they allocate to application security this year.
The second point is that application programming interfaces (APIs) are expanding, and so is the risk associated with using them. APIs, or application programming interfaces, are what allow modern programs to talk to one another. Almost all current applications make use of one or more application programming interfaces (APIs), and some even function as APIs themselves. The number of API calls made throughout the world continues to increase, and cybercriminals have taken note of this trend. According to Forrester’s findings, the volume of malicious API traffic nearly quadrupled during the timeframe of December 2020 and January 2021.
APIs are now unequivocally a part of the expanding attack surface of companies, and it can be expected that their significance will continue to increase over the course of the next several years. This indicates that they should be an essential part of any security effort. There are several different approaches to securing APIs, one of which is to actively scan and monitor them for any harmful behavior that may occur.
AppSec with GuardRails
GuardRails provides complete protection for software, from the source code to the cloud. GuardRails will improve your development processes while also providing you with enhanced security capabilities. We eliminate noise and assist you in writing code that is safer, which enables you to move more quickly and efficiently. If you integrate security into your software development lifecycle, your team will be able to focus their efforts where they will have the greatest impact. We take care to prioritize and address any severe security flaws as soon as they are discovered, relieving you of any unnecessary concerns. It doesn’t matter what version control system, programming language, framework, database, or integrated development environment you use; the integration inside your tech stack is quick and seamless from the minute you start coding. Adaptable enterprise application security that protects you from beginning to end and all the steps in between.
We adapt to your specific security requirements and include the enterprise features you’re searching for. The sophisticated smart scanning technology utilized by GuardRails performs code change evaluations directly within your workflow. Any vulnerabilities can be patched immediately after they are introduced. We do the scan in the background while keeping a low profile, and we assist you in finding significant security flaws as soon as they appear in your code rather than after they have been released to the public. You won’t hear from GuardRails until it’s absolutely necessary.
Through Just-In-Time training, we explain immediately why a vulnerability is significant and walk you through how to simply correct it. This not only makes your code safer, but it also helps you improve your skills in order to stop making the same mistakes in the future. Suddenly, application security has become an integral component of your software development cycle rather than an extra step that must be taken. Utilizing the insights and role-specific data provided by GuardRails further improves both the speed and security of your system.
You can try GuardRails for free any time and see how it can make your life easier.
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