Application(opens in new tab) security(opens in new tab) has become an increasingly difficult and complex challenge across all industries. Rapid innovation has resulted in a significant increase in attack surfaces in recent years, particularly where organizations have shifted to modern application stacks built on cloud(opens in new tab) native technologies. Increased Internet of Things (IoT) and connected device deployment, as well as new hybrid working(opens in new tab) models, have increased attack surfaces.
Simultaneously, there has been a significant increase in the volume and sophistication of cybercrime threats, raising concerns within IT departments. According to the latest Cisco AppDynamics research, The shift to a security approach for the full application stack, 78% of technologists believe their organization is vulnerable to a multi-staged cybersecurity(opens in new tab) attack that would affect the entire application stack over the next 12 months. Of course, such an attack could have disastrous consequences for brands.
Many IT teams struggle because they lack the visibility and insights needed to understand where new threats are coming from across a sprawling topology of applications. More than half of technologists say they frequently find themselves in “security limbo” because they don’t know what to focus on and prioritize.
An integrated approach to application security allows IT teams to secure the entire stack of modern applications throughout their lifecycle. It protects applications from development to production, across code, containers (opens in a new tab), and Kubernetes. Importantly, with combined application and security monitoring, technologists can see how vulnerabilities may affect the business and then prioritize their actions accordingly, rather than remaining in limbo.
IT departments are inundated with security alerts
In recent years, application security has simply not kept up with release velocity. The vast majority of technologists admit that during the pandemic, the rush to rapidly innovate and respond to changing customer and user needs has come at the expense of robust application security during software development. And the pressure to prioritize speed over security isn’t going away anytime soon.
As a result, IT teams are facing a number of new challenges, ranging from keeping up with a constantly evolving risk landscape to a lack of skills to manage security in cloud native environments. A growing issue, according to technologists, is a lack of a shared vision between application development and security teams.
The most difficult challenge, arguably, is a lack of visibility into changing attack surfaces and vulnerabilities. Many current security solutions work well in silos but not together, preventing technologists from gaining a comprehensive or unified view of their organization’s security posture. They have visibility gaps across multi-cloud environments, with application components running on multiple platforms and on-premise databases.
As a result, IT teams are inundated with security alerts from all levels of the IT stack but are unable to assess the severity and potential impact of these issues in order to prioritize their resources. Technologists are completely overwhelmed and don’t know which fire to put out first.
Adopting a security strategy for the entire application stack
As a result, technologists are recognizing the need for a security approach for the entire application stack that provides complete protection for their applications from development to production, across code, containers, and Kubernetes. In fact, 79% of technologists say that implementing a security strategy for the entire application stack is now a top priority for their company.
In addition, IT teams must integrate performance and security monitoring in order to understand how vulnerabilities and incidents may affect end users and the business. Business transaction insights enable technologists to assess the importance of threats based on severity scoring, taking into account the threat’s context. This means they can prioritize threats that may harm a business-critical environment or application. Suddenly, technologists can cut through the data noise created by large volumes of security alerts and focus on what truly matters.
However, because of the complexity and dynamic nature of cloud-native technologies, as well as the rapid expansion of attack surfaces, IT teams are increasingly embracing automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to detect and resolve issues across the technology stack, including cloud native microservices, Kubernetes containers, multi-cloud environments, and mainframe data centers.
AI is already being used for continuous detection and prioritization, so that security exploits can be identified and blocked automatically, without the need for human intervention, maximizing speed and uptime while minimizing risk. Furthermore, more than three-quarters of technologists believe that AI will play an increasingly important role in addressing the application security challenges that their organization faces in terms of speed, scale, and skills.
To protect modern application stacks, organizations must foster much closer collaboration among IT teams. A DevSecOps approach incorporates security testing earlier in the development process, with security teams analyzing and prioritizing security risks and priorities during the planning phase to lay a solid foundation for development.
IT teams can be far more proactive and strategic in their risk management with a holistic approach to application security that combines automation, integrated performance and security monitoring, and DevSecOps methodologies. Rather than being stuck in limbo, a security approach for the entire application stack can enable technologists to create more secure products, avoid costly downtime, and advance into the next era of innovation.
