What is Application Security?

What is application security?

Application security is not a single technology; rather, it’s a set of best practices, functions, and/or features added to an organization’s software to help prevent and remediate threats from cyber attackers, data breaches, and other sources. 

There are various kinds of application security programs, services, and devices an organization can use. Firewalls, antivirus systems, and data encryption are just a few examples to prevent unauthorized users from entering a system. If an organization wishes to predict specific, sensitive data sets, they can establish unique application security policies for those resources.

Application security can occur in various stages, but establishing best practices happens most often in the application development phases. However, businesses can leverage different tools and services post-development as well. Overall, there are hundreds of security tools available to businesses, and each of them serve unique purposes. Some solidify coding changes; others keep an eye out for coding threats; and some will establish data encryption. Not to mention, businesses can choose more specialized tools for different types of applications.

Benefits of application security

Businesses rely on applications to power nearly everything they do, so keeping them secure is nonnegotiable. Below are some of the many benefits of investing in application security:

• Reduced risk from both internal and third-party sources – By eliminating as many vulnerabilities as possible, you can increase your potential to ward off attacks.

• Increased confidence and trust from customers – By demonstrating that your applications are secure and trustworthy, you help increase customer confidence, which could also breed loyalty and positive word of mouth.

• Maintenance of brand image – Attacks put businesses in the headlines, and that is unwanted publicity. 

• Increased trust from third-party stakeholders, clients, and partners – People want to do business with companies they trust.

• Reduced disruption to operations – By identifying potential security issues and resolving them before they lead to a full-on attack or loss of data, you can head off unwanted disruption to operations.

• Identification of issues during the development phase – With the right AppSec solution, you can identify common attack vectors and risks during development and create a resolution strategy for them before releasing an application into production.

• Earlier awareness of potential risks – Most application security solutions are designed to identify security vulnerabilities and alert administrators to the existence of potential issues—so you can address the risks and eliminate vulnerabilities before an attacker can take advantage of them.

• Increased compliance with security mandates – Today’s data is subject to a wide variety of industry and governmental security regulations and requirements. 

Why is application security important?

If your organization handles customer data (and virtually all businesses do), application security is essential. It’s vital that you implement security solutions that monitor and manage app vulnerabilities because data is a prized asset for attackers. Whether it’s your customers’ data, proprietary product secrets, or confidential employee information, attackers can use it for nefarious purposes.

It’s just a fact that software is going to have vulnerabilities. Some are minor bugs that don’t affect the performance or security of the application, but others can be more serious. Even non-critical vulnerabilities can become an entryway for attackers when they are combined. With application security, you mitigate much of the risk of minor and major vulnerabilities and reduce your overall attack surface. The fewer points of entry you provide for attackers, the better your protection is.

Many of today’s applications are also cloud-based, which only increases vulnerabilities as data is transmitted over various networks and connected to remote servers. While network security is critical, it’s also important to protect each application individually. Hackers are turning to applications more often lately, but application security testing and other solutions can offer valuable protection.

Application security demonstrates a proactive approach to security, rather than a reactive one. Protecting your apps from the start is significantly smarter than simply hoping an attack doesn’t happen—and then when it does, hurrying to try and fix the problem. A proactive approach to application security can give you an edge when it comes to mitigation. You might be able to fix a problem before it even has a chance to affect your operations or customers.

The consequences of a security breach can be severe—and costly. Security breaches are so common today that it’s probably not an issue of if, but when an attack will occur. Some modern attacks can shut down a business temporarily or even for good. It’s extremely unwise to neglect securing your applications the best you can before attackers get in and cause damage.

When customers use your applications, they trust that you will keep their information safe and private. If you don’t secure your applications, customers could have their identities stolen, their credit cards could be compromised, their bank accounts could be hacked, sensitive information about their health or finances, for instance, could be published, and so on.

If you don’t have the right application security tools in place, you could be setting your organization up for serious problems as well as putting your customers and their data at risk.

Types of application security

Application security can entail a number of capabilities and technologies. Here are some of the most common types of security protocols: 

• Authentication – Making sure a user is who they say they are.

• Authorization – Ensuring that only authorized users can access an application’s services and data.

• Encryption – Transmitting sensitive data in encrypted code to keep it private as it travels across networks and servers.

• Logging – Keeping records of who has access to an application, who used it recently, what they did, and so on; valuable for determining what happened after an attack, or to flag suspicious behavior in real time.

• Application security testing – Periodically testing the security of an application to make sure it’s working as it should. 

A good application security solution will use most if not all of the technologies above. They all work together to create a barrier of defense around an application to protect the data as well as possible. For instance, a user wants to sign into a mobile banking application and they enter their username and password on the login page. With the username and password, the system assumes that the person is who they say they are—but many organizations are increasingly adopting multifactor authentication (MFA), which entails an extra step when signing in. Beyond simply having the username and password to an account, MFA will send a code to the user’s phone or email for an additional verification that it’s the right person. Once the user enters the code, the system authorizes the user to enter the system. Any information the person enters is encrypted so it can travel across networks and to remote servers without being read by others. Everything the person does in the application is logged—either for future reference in the event of a data breach or to identify anomalous or suspicious behavior, which will then alert an administrator.

Application security applications

Cloud application security

Cloud application security can be complicated for several reasons: 1) cloud environments are shared and distributed, 2) cloud services can be quite complex, and 3) cloud deployments tend to be dynamic. It’s important to keep your cloud applications secure without compromising their scalability, flexibility, and cost-efficiency. 

Some of the most common challenges (and solutions) for cloud application security include: 

Shared Responsibility Model

In the cloud, you have some security obligations when it comes to your applications, and your cloud provider has some as well. Each provider can vary a bit, but typically the cloud provider is in charge of securing the cloud infrastructure and underlying processes and you are in charge of securing your applications and data. Your responsibility includes virtual machines and operating systems as well. 

The solution here is to make sure you have a very clear understanding of where your security responsibilities begin and end, and what responsibilities fall to your cloud provider. Also, hold regular security training and awareness sessions with teams such as DevOps and app development teams to verify that the right security controls and governance practices are in place as they should be. 

Distributed nature of cloud application data

It’s very common to store and process application data in multiple locations across cloud platforms—or even across multiple clouds. This can make it tough to ensure consistent availability, integrity, and privacy of that data, but it’s critical that you do. 

Solutions for this challenge include encryption of data in transit and at rest, as well as during processing. Data classification and access control tools can also help you identify the most sensitive data and ensure that security control are consistent across platforms and stringent enough for the type of data it is. Cloud providers often supply users with geo-replication capabilities and data residency tools, which can help you stay compliant with data security, privacy, and sovereignty regulations. 

Lack of visibility into cloud data and potential for misconfiguration

Misconfiguration of applications in the cloud is a common security challenge, and it can be difficult to recognize right away because of the lack of visibility into cloud data. Misconfiguration of security tools, such as firewalls and access control, can also increase vulnerability to attack or data breach. 

Solutions that help overcome this challenge include automated configuration management tools, which are often built-in or included with cloud services. These tools can identify deviations from pre-set policies and conditions and alert you to potential issues. Another good practice is consistent, continuous monitoring and logging of all cloud resources. Again, this will help you identify anomalies or suspicious behavior and can enable you to address vulnerabilities before they become real problems.  

Identity and access management

The nature of the cloud allows many users to access stored data and applications from anywhere, but that ease of access can also become a challenge in terms of managing who has access to what, and when. It can be common for users to have too-broad access to data they don’t need or for users to still have access to cloud resources even after they have left the company or no longer need them. 

A critical solution for this challenge is to adopt the principle of least privilege, which means that users and services receive the fewest permissions possible to enable them to do their work. Identify and access management tools can automate access policies and relieve the management burden on IT. Another helpful tool is multifactor authentication (MFA), which requires more than a simple password that can be hacked too easily. Conducting regular reviews of user accesses can also be helpful. 

Security testing and incident response

Cloud services are dynamic, and things can change often. That can make it difficult to adequately test your organization’s security procedures and incident response. However, staying on top of that testing is a vital component to heading off attacks and bouncing back quickly after the worst has happened. 

An important solution for this challenge is automated security testing, which can continuously scan for potential vulnerabilities in the background across all of your cloud applications. Having a solid incident response plan is also key to mitigating threats and restoring or recovering data when attacks occur. A cloud-specific plan should include how your organization will contain attacks, investigate threats or attacks, and recover data and operations. There are many cloud-native tools that can help you with threat detection and response. 

Web application security

Security for web-based applications is extremely important because web apps are frequent targets for malicious actors. The types of web-app attacks you might experience include: 

Injection attacks 

These occur when an attacker inputs untrusted data into a system command, which causes the system to execute commands it shouldn’t. Ways to avoid these attacks include parameterized queries, which ensure that user input is not allowed to be executable code; and input validation tools that ensure all users (and their inputs) are validated and sanitized of suspicious or non-allowed characters. 

Cross-site scripting (XSS)

Some attackers inject malicious code into web pages that infect the browser of any user who accesses that page. The code can be set up to capture keystrokes, redirect the browser to malicious websites, or steal session cookies. Output encoding, or encoding data before rendering it in the browser, can prevent others from injecting executable code. It’s also smart to create a robust content security policy that restricts which domains can serve scripts. This can prevent malicious script execution. 

Cross-site request forgery (CSRF)

Some attackers can trick users into unwittingly performing an action (such as authorizing a bank transfer) on a web application owned or controlled by the attacker. Anti-CSRF tokens can help prevent this type of attack and work by ensuring that the action was requested by an authenticated user. SameSite cookie attributes can prevent attackers from accessing a user’s session cookie. And many organizations are increasingly requiring users to re-authenticate or use multifactor authentication before performing critical actions. 

Insecure direct object references (IDOR)

Some attackers manipulate input parameters such as URLs, form fields, or APIs to access or modify objects they aren’t authorized to access. Proper authorization checks can help mitigate these attacks. So can the use of non-predictable identifiers for objects that aren’t guessable. Implementing the principle of least privilege can also help because it grants access to only the resources and data each user is authorized to use. 

Weak authentication mechanisms or improper session management

Issues such as insecure password storage, predictable session IDs, and poor session expiration policies can lead to account hijacking, unauthorized access, and user session hijacking. Strong authentication, preferably multi-factor, can reduce these risks. It’s important to store passwords securely using strong, salted hashing algorithms. Session expiration and timeout policies should also be implemented. 

Insufficient logging and monitoring

This leads to difficulties in your detection and response to security incidents, and allows attackers to remain in your system for more time before being caught. A comprehensive logging practice that is secure and centralized, and captures relevant details like IP addresses and request details, can help you avoid this issue. Real-time monitoring is also recommended for detecting suspicious activities and potential threats. 

Denial of service (DoS) attacks

Applications on the web are vulnerable to DoS or distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, which involve flooding the applications with traffic so other users can’t get through, can overwhelm web infrastructure and cause the application to go down. Web application firewalls can help you avoid these attacks. So can rate limiting and throttling, which helps prevent abuse of application resources and makes it impossible for one user to flood the application. Load balancing is another way to mitigate these attacks, as it enables you to distribute traffic across multiple servers. 

Mobile application security

Mobile application security can be uniquely challenging, thanks to the wide variety of devices, operating systems, and networking infrastructure that mobile apps operate in. Some of the most common issues with mobile application security include: 

Insecure device storage

When mobile applications store sensitive user data on the physical device, that data can be vulnerable to attackers if the device is compromised. Encrypting sensitive data is an important way to prevent this challenge. Another idea is to completely avoid storing sensitive data on the device itself. You can also use secure storage locations built-in to some devices, which are designed to protect data even if the device is compromised. 

Man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks 

Some network communications infrastructure isn’t properly secured, so your sensitive data can be intercepted in a MITM attack, in which an attacker accesses your data while it’s in transit. It’s a good idea to always use HTTPS for encrypting data in transit between the mobile app and the server. You can also implement certificate pinning, which pins the server’s SSL certificate within the app to prevent fraudulent certificates. 

Insufficient authentication and authorization

Weak authentication or authorization checks can give attackers access to your mobile app and allow them to perform unauthorized actions or compromise your data. Avoid this by using multifactor authentication and implement robust password policies. Even biometric features can be a good defense against these attacks. Role-based access control can help, giving users access only to the resources they’re authorized for. 

Insecure third-party libraries and APIs

When mobile apps depend on third-party libraries or APIs for functionality, these external resources can be vulnerable to security breaches—especially if they’re not updated or patched regularly. Regular updates and patches can help prevent issues here. So can vendor security assessments before integrating these libraries or APIs. And again, the least privilege principle can help by ensuring that users have access only to apps and resources they need to do their jobs. 

Insecure data deletion

Uninstalling an app on your mobile device doesn’t necessarily mean that all residual data has been wiped. When you sell or discard a device, sensitive data such as user credentials or transaction histories could still reside in caches, storage, or backups. Using secure data deletion practices will help ensure that deleted data can’t be recovered by attackers. Also ensure that all data is wiped properly from local device storage and application caches. 

Poor app permissions

Many mobile apps ask for permission to access different parts of your device, such as the camera, microphone, location services, and so on. Sometimes, they don’t need that information to function, and giving the app permission can lead to vulnerabilities that can be exploited. Applying the least privilege principle for app permissions can help protect your data. Runtime permission requests are a good idea because they request access to a feature only when that feature is truly required. 

Malware and other malicious software

Adware, spyware, and trojans are a few of the types of malware that can become an issue for mobile application security. One way to prevent malware is to only download applications from official app stores that check for malware and are strict about security guidelines. You can also do app integrity checks using digital signatures or hashing to ensure that apps haven’t been modified or tampered with.

Common application security weaknesses and threats

There are two well-known lists of security weaknesses in the industry. One list, focused on web apps, is compiled by the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) and the other list, or Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) is created by the InfoSec community and focuses on potential issues in any software in general. The lists not only rank the issues by degree of seriousness (which can change depending on the year), but they also offer recommendations for developers on how to mitigate or eliminate those weaknesses.

The most recent OWASP Top Ten list, compiled in 2021, includes: 

1. Broken access control – Attackers get past access controls with false permissions or other ways.
2. Cryptographic failures – Obsolete cryptographic ciphers, cryptographic protocols implemented incorrectly, etc.
3. Injection – Attackers are able to enter data into an app that contains malware or redirects to a phishing website, etc.
4. Insecure design – System architecture design flaws or an authentication process that is insecure, a website that isn’t designed to prevent bots, etc.
5. Security misconfiguration – Issues with the security configuration that leaves the app open to attacks, such as allowing the use of a default username or password.
6. Vulnerable and outdated components – Some components used in software development already have vulnerabilities; can also be an unpatched or out-of-date application, library, framework, API, or other component.
7. Identification and authentication failures – Issues that cause vulnerabilities, such as brute-force attacks or credential stuffing; could also be an app that doesn’t use MFA, etc.
8. Software and data integrity failures – App code or infrastructure that leaves certain vulnerabilities open, such as not using digital signatures when installing updates, etc.
9. Security logging and monitoring failures – Caused by inadequate security monitoring so the system doesn’t detect an attack.
10. Server-side request forgery – Occurs when an app doesn’t adequately validate resources provided by the user.

Top ten application weaknesses on the CWE list, updated in 2023, are:

1. Out-of-bounds write - The product writes data past the end or before the beginning of the intended buffer.  Typically, this can result in corruption of data, a crash, or code execution.
2. Improper neutralization of input during web page generation (cross-site scripting) - The product does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes user-controllable input before it is placed in output that is used as a web page that is served to other users.
3. Improper neutralization of special elements used in an SQL command (SQL injection) - The product constructs all or part of an SQL command using externally influenced input from an upstream component, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes special elements that could modify the intended SQL command when it is sent to a downstream component.
4. Use after free - Referencing memory after it has been freed can cause a program to crash, use unexpected values, or execute code.
5. Improper neutralization of special elements used in an OS command (OS command injection) - The product constructs all or part of an OS command using externally influenced input from an upstream component, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes special elements that could modify the intended OS command when it is sent to a downstream component.
6. Improper input validation - The product receives input or data, but it does not validate or incorrectly validates that the input has the properties that are required to process the data safely and correctly.
7. Out-of-bounds read - The product reads data past the end, or before the beginning, of the intended buffer.  Typically, this can allow attackers to read sensitive information from other memory locations or cause a crash.
8. Improper limitation of a pathname to a restricted directory (path traversal) - The product uses external input to construct a pathname that is intended to identify a file or directory that is located underneath a restricted parent directory, but the product does not properly neutralize special elements within the pathname that can cause the pathname to resolve to a location that is outside of the restricted directory.
9. Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) - The web application does not, or can not, sufficiently verify whether a well-formed, valid, consistent request was intentionally provided by the user who submitted the request.
10. Unrestricted upload of file with dangerous type - The product allows the attacker to upload or transfer files of dangerous types that can be automatically processed within the product's environment.

Application security testing

Application security testing is the process of assessing how secure an application is by looking closely at the app’s architecture, source code, configuration, communication mechanisms, design, and overall environment to detect any vulnerabilities, weaknesses, or security flaws. The objective of application security testing is to identify and fix security issues before releasing the application for public use. It’s a vital part of the software development lifecycle. 

Common types of application security testing:

• Static application security testing (SAST) – Done early in the development phase, this testing analyzes the app’s code to find security issues without executing the program. 

• Dynamic application security testing (DAST) – Testing an app while it’s running to analyze how the application operates in a live environment. This can provide real-time perspective on how an attacker might take advantage of vulnerabilities. 

• Interactive application security testing (IAST) – A combination of SAST and DAST with more detailed scrutiny of the source code. It can provide static and dynamic analysis and help identify issues during execution. 

• Software composition analysis (SCA) – Scanning an application for third-party open source components, libraries, and other dependencies to detect any vulnerabilities in those components. 

• Penetration testing – Also called ethical hacking, this involves simulating an attack on an application by designated security professionals. The idea is to identify and leverage vulnerabilities just as a real attacker would. 

Best practices for application security testing:

• Make security testing an integral part of every phase of the software development lifecycle, from design to deployment. 

• Regularly perform security scans to catch vulnerabilities as the application evolves. 

• Automate security testing wherever possible to enable faster detection and remediation. 

• Ensure developers follow secure coding practices and comply with security guidelines. 

• Don’t skip the penetration testing because it can reveal complex vulnerabilities that automated testing systems might miss. 

• Ensure robust training for developers and security teams—including secure coding practices, threat modeling, and vulnerability management. 

• Regularly update third-party libraries and frameworks to address known vulnerabilities. 

• Use a combination of testing methods for the most comprehensive analysis of static code vulnerabilities as well as runtime threats.

How to enable application security

Without a doubt, the best, most robust application security starts at the code. Otherwise known as security by design, this approach is crucial to get right. Application vulnerabilities, in many cases, start with a compromised architecture riddled with design flaws. This means that application security must be woven into the development process—i.e., code. 

A security-by-design approach means your applications start off with a clean, well-protected slate. But beyond this method, there are several other application security best practices businesses should keep in mind as they finetune their strategy.

1. Treat your cloud architecture, whether public or on-prem, as insecure. Defaulting to this mindset eliminates complacency and comfort in assuming the cloud is secure enough. 
2. Apply security measures to each component of your application and during each phase of the development process. Be sure you include the appropriate measures to each unique component.
3. A crucial but time-consuming strategy is to automate the installation and configuration processes. Even if you have already completed these processes previously, you’ll need to re-do them for your next-generation applications.
4. Simply establishing security measures is not enough. Be sure to frequently test and retest them to ensure they are working properly. In the event of a breach, you’ll be thankful you detected and remediated any faults. 
5. Take advantage of SaaS offerings to offload time-consuming security tasks and refocus your scope to more high-value projects. SaaS is both relatively affordable and doesn’t require a dedicated IT team to configure products.

Application tools and solutions

There are many tools and solutions available today that can make application security testing simpler and more efficient. These include: 

• Security configuration management tools that ensure the application’s runtime environment—such as servers or the cloud—is configured correctly to prevent attacks enabled by misconfigurations. 

• Threat modeling tools that can identify security threats early on in the design phase of app development. 

• Security monitoring and incident response tools that help you monitor live applications for potential security issues and vulnerabilities. 

• Container security tools that analyze container environments and detect security vulnerabilities.