Many companies, including the big ones, forget that corporate application security, like cyber security of other natures, is an ongoing duty, not a one-time investment that works by itself and doesn’t require any degree of maintenance, update, or supervision.
Legacy and abandoned web services, outdated inventory systems, changing legislation, unprotected cloud storage, and expired SSL certificates are just a few of the elements that contribute to the problem. If these exist in your organization, you may have a serious cybersecurity problem: a few holes for hackers to get into your systems and cause mayhem.
There are many mistakes that companies make that lead and aggravate these scenarios. In the following lines, we’ll review a few of them.
Neglecting a Consistent Application Security Strategy
As briefly mentioned before, many organizations treat application security as a one-time action to take and implement. They don’t have an ongoing plan to keep systems protected and threats at bay.
DevSecOps and Secure SDLC may be mechanisms that are priorities or, at the very least, present in the minds of those who are responsible. Yet, they could be failing to actively implement these and other security mechanisms.
Application Security Testing (AST) should be a recurrent action within the organization, not something that takes place exclusively when things go down. AST should be aligned with security-oriented goals defined by the company, where keeping the operations up and running efficiently and safely is a top priority.
Relying on Open Source Solutions without Considering its Implications
While the use of open source solutions in the corporate environment is perfectly rational and convenient, it can also bring a whole new set of problems in the cyber security field. Its financial justification is more than enough for many companies to go with it, leaving aside market-leading software that guarantees stability and efficiency at a considerable cost.
Yet, the challenges imposed by open source solutions in corporate environments are very, very real. OSS is a current target for hackers as they know that those involved with open source libraries are often less worried about “minor” security and privacy flaws that the software may have. These “minor” flaws can be easily exploited by cybercriminals.
If using OSS is the only, most convenient option by that much and have to be used in your organization, make constant security monitoring one of your top priorities for the whole team to have.
Ignoring the Legal Side of IT
Legal teams on many corporations will try to go over the legal implications of applications used, especially if they have little to no background in IT. Legal aspects of software can be a serious drag for lawyers who aren’t specialized in this field.
The consequences of this may be serious. A business can be easily be exposing highly-valuable intellectual property and trade secrets by using the software in an improper, irresponsible way. With in-house professionals and third-party suppliers having access to corporate applications, having the legal side of IT in good shape (especially how data is stored and manipulated) is paramount.