The digital ecosystem of today is
underpinned on applications that influence us in the way we communicate and
interact. The applications are repositories of sensitive personal or business
information, which if accessed by inimical forces such as
hackers/cybercriminals, the consequences can be catastrophic - both for the
individuals and businesses. If we go by statistics, then cybercrime has taken a
humongous toll on individuals, businesses, organizations, and entities with an
annual loss projected at $1.5 trillion globally. As if on cue and given the
ramifications, the global spending on cybersecurity has shown an increase as
well and is predicted to touch $170.4 billion by 2022.
With the change in technology, the
contours and mechanics of cyberattacks are changing as well. Let us understand
the changing trends of cyber-attacks.
New targets: The impact of cybercrime is seen
mostly in information theft, which can hit a big blow to the bottom lines of
businesses. However, apart from data, the cybercriminals also target the core
industrial control systems with the purpose of disrupting and destroying
organizations.
Change in impact: Stealing data may have become foremost
outcome of any cybercrime incident. However, the changing modus-operandi is
more about attacking data integrity. This is done to create distrust in the
minds of end-users, clients, and business stakeholders.
New techniques: As people, organizations, and entities
are waking up to the menace, cybercriminals are changing their attacking
methods. In many cases, they are targeting the weakest link - the human layer -
to wreak havoc using phishing and turncoat insiders.
Businesses often do not take the job
of application security
testing seriously, thanks to the prevalence of several myths:
Myth 1: Our digital assets are protected by
firewalls, so we are safe.
Fact: Firewalls can prevent the access of
cybercriminals at the network level, that to a certain extent. However, cyber-attacks
can take the route of the application layer, which firewalls are not adept at
protecting.
Myth 2: The applications are not exposed to
the internet and have internal storage and usage.
Fact: In most cases, businesses prioritize
protecting their systems and databases from external attacks. However,
compromised insiders with authorized system access and familiarity with the
system architecture and security protocols can be more dangerous.
Myth 3: Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology
is foolproof and protects a website from cyber-attacks.
Fact: Even though SSL is key to
strengthening the cybersecurity architecture of a website, it can be exploited
by cybercriminals. The latter can make use of low encryption algorithms to
decrypt traffic and steal information.
Steps to enhance
application security testing
When so much is at stake for
individuals and businesses, investing in an application security testing methodology has become critical. Let
us discuss the steps that enterprises can take to enforce software
application security testing.
Complying with
security protocols: With cybersecurity
becoming critical in ensuring the smooth functioning of the digital ecosystem,
the industry has set up some regulations and standards. These include ISO
27001, NIST, HIPAA, PCI DSS, and Sarbanes-Oxley, among others. Enterprises must
comply with the above-mentioned standards to avoid penalties, censure, and
filing of lawsuits for damages.
Conduct
penetration testing: It calls for an
in-depth security assessment of the system’s architecture to identify its
vulnerabilities. The vulnerabilities can get into the system due to poor
coding, weak design elements, improper configuration management, and poor
implementation of security policies and standards.
Implement
DevSecOps: The DevOps methodology can help
enterprises in accelerating the time to market, enhance the quality of products
or services, improve the customer experience, and achieve ROI. It calls for the
continuous integration and testing of codes and breaking silos between the
development and operations teams. However, given the emerging dimension of
cybersecurity, security should be made an integral part of DevOps where
everyone in the pipeline should be made accountable.
Identification of
outliers: Any software application security testing should be able to identify
the outliers. In other words, any malicious behavior of the code should be
quickly identified and set for remedial action.
Supervision of the
IoT network: The advent of IoT
technology is making communication between devices a reality. However, this is
also giving rise to the issues of security breaches. This calls for continuous
monitoring of the IoT network to check any cybersecurity breaches.
Conclusion
Securing the IT system has become the
need of the hour given the wider ramifications of cybercrime. In the digital
ecosystem where applications help to connect devices and systems, a single
vulnerability can compromise the entire infrastructure. By rigorously
implementing web application security
testing, vulnerabilities can be identified, and an overarching
protection can be ensured.
Author Bio
Oliver has been
associated with Cigniti Technologies Ltd as an Associate Manager - Content
Marketing, with over 10 years of industry experience as a Content Writer in
Software Testing & Quality Assurance industry.
This article is
originally published on dev.to.
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