Skip to content

Application Security Scanning Can Save Your Business

Web and mobile applications are everywhere, connecting us to our digital world. These applications drive just about everything we do online, from login pages to shopping carts, webmail to content management systems, and much more.

Found in most of today’s client-side browser and operating system environments, applications can be deployed quickly, just about anywhere, and at little or no cost. Although they may be developed in-house, many are acquired from third parties. In fact, there were more than 218 billion mobile app downloads worldwide in 2020. While that has had a massive impact on our productivity, it has also opened the door to more potential problems.

Application security failure

That’s why it’s no surprise that attacks on web applications represented 39 percent of all breaches in 2020 and more than 30,000 websites are hacked daily.

Given their popularity and importance, web and mobile apps are often developed in a rush to meet business demands. That means coding errors are inevitable, but the vulnerabilities that result from these mistakes can let malicious actors gain direct access to the databases that web and mobile apps interact with—including sensitive data like passwords and financial information.

Quest CTA CybersecurityDiscoverySession

The result? Sensational but preventable application security failures. And the reasons are clear: 79 percent of organizations push vulnerable code to production either occasionally or regularly, yet these same organizations rated their own application security posture as being in pretty good shape. 

The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) lists 10 serious web application security risks and also offers up a top 10 list of mobile application risks. These lists make it obvious: your applications are at risk.

It’s time to ask yourself: How do I make sure my application is secure?
 
Reduce risks with application security services

Given the challenges that come with in-house application development, as noted above, it’s worth considering moving to an outsourced application developer that offers cutting-edge application security services.

With the right mix of support and services you can move toward a mature application security (AppSec) program that protects your application layer, increasing your confidence that the risk of a security breach has been reduced. An effective application security service provider can help you define clear AppSec program policies and goals for improving your security posture and meet compliance requirements. The right partner can also help you scale developer security operations (DevSecOps) using proven best practices.

Application security testing

App security testing helps your business find flaws in software so they can be fixed before attackers can exploit them. A solid app security service will detect bugs, vulnerabilities, and code smells and can then integrate with your existing workflow to enable continuous code inspection across your project branches and pull requests.

Testing services should cover the gamut of potential vulnerabilities, including static application security testing (SAST), dynamic application security testing (DAST), interactive application security testing (IAST), and software composition analysis (SCA), among others. An effective outsourced application management and reporting service will give you more reliable results, meaning fewer false positives.

You don’t need hard-to-find in-house expertise to handle your application security – better to find a competent services provider with the depth of experience necessary to protect your applications, reduce your risks of data loss and downtime, and tighten up your compliance management.

I hope you found this information helpful. As always, contact us anytime about your technology needs.

Until next time,

Tim

Meet the Author
Tim Burke is the President and CEO of Quest. He has been at the helm for over 30 years.
Contact Quest Today  ˄
close slider