In the current times, with the evolution of next-gen technologies, a number of applications are being developed for different purposes. With the increase in the number of applications, malware attacks, and cybersecurity threats are also increasing, which poses an important question; are you completely sure that your applications are totally secured from all the cybersecurity threats and malware attacks? Well, if your answer is yes, then that’s amazing! However, if the answer to the question mentioned above is No, then chances are high that you will suffer due to a faulty security system.
Security has always been a critical aspect for almost all industries and businesses and is still thriving globally. Despite paying attention to application security, organizations and web app developers fail miserably due to insufficient security systems. According to trusted sources, more than 18 million websites and applications are affected by malware each week. Since the COVID-19 pandemic cybercrime rate has increased by 600 percent. Attackers targeted almost 714 million web applications in the USA in the year 2021. Not only that, but the situation has been getting worse with each passing year. Furthermore, the DDoS attacks in the fourth quarter of 2021 stood up at the mark of 7,59,000, and the losses due to such breaches are expected to cross $150 million by the end of 2022.
Consequences of Application Security Breaches
With a poor application security system, the companies might suffer from financial losses and may even experience loss in reputation. Not only that, but the companies may even suffer from poor sales due to inefficient customer services and loss in customer data. Here are a few consequences of an inefficient application security system.
- Significant financial losses due to leaks in critical financial data.
- Theft of sensitive customer data may result in a lack of customer trust.
- A decreased brand value due to a negative perception of the brand by the customers.
- Distrust on the customer’s part due to faults in application security systems.
Therefore, it becomes of utmost importance for any organization to pay heed to the security concerns of their web-based applications. But the main question is what aspects to consider while considering the security of your enterprises’ applications? Well, here we have listed some of the crucial security goals that an organization has to accomplish for the perfect and efficient functioning of their business.
Security Goals of the Organizations for 2022
In today’s digital world, the security of the application is always an utmost concern for any organization. So, if you are also a part of the same community, then here are the top goals that you need to undertake while planning your business strategies for 2022.
| Data Security | First and foremost, you need to ensure that all the critical data of your organization as well as that related to your customers is safe and secure. You just invest in a good security system to ensure complete security and minimize data breaches in your organization. |
| Confidentiality | Apart from data security, you also need to ensure that no third person can access your applications and security systems. Meaning, you should invest well in security tools to prevent unauthorized access to your applications and data systems. |
| Availability | Availability should also be your utmost goal for the year 2022. All the credentials of your security systems should readily be available to all the trusted members of your organization. That way, they could seamlessly access the applications and could streamline your work operations. |
| Integrity | Last but not least, data integrity, which is authenticated data and information, should also be one of the goals for your organization in 2022. The data provided by your application should be effective and trustworthy. It should be authorized and free from malicious activities. |
So, these are the top four goals for almost all the organizations for the year 2022. Want to be a part of the same community? Don’t worry; we have got you covered! Dive into the best security practices that you can include in your strategies to accomplish all the goals mentioned above.
Let’s get started!
Top 10 Web App Security Practices
1. Perform a Risk Management
First and foremost, you need to perform risk management to mitigate the security issues for your organizations efficiently. Nearly all organizations today have a lot of applications and software solutions in their organizations. However, it is to be seen that not all the applications are being utilized on an everyday basis. For instance, an AI application that once awestruck your organization may not be as resourceful as it was. Hence, it would help if you thought of all those applications that may even come under your security radar as the hackers may leverage these unpatched gaps to break all your security systems.
That’s why you should track all the resourceful assets of your organization and should close all those that you no longer need. Also, this process of tracking the assets needs to be automated as the manual work may consume a lot of your crucial time and other vital resources. All in all, you need to understand that a periodic risk assessment is vital to secure all the systems and applications of your organization to remain risk-free.
2. Create an Application Security Blueprint
Another crucial aspect that you need to consider while aiming to secure your applications is the creation of security blueprints. Often companies take up a disorganized approach in solving security problems and end up accomplishing nothing. A great security plan helps to accomplish your goals in a much feasible and efficient manner. It helps to satisfy all your business goals while keeping things in sync with each other.
A detailed and actionable plan is much needed to accomplish your business goals and secure and safeguard all your working operations. For instance, if you need to enhance your organization’s overall compliance, then an efficient plan not only helps you in doing so but also helps you prioritize the applications for security compliance. Hence, an effective security blueprint will keep your organization on top of the application security practices. However, it is to be noted that the security blueprint depends on the type and size of the organization. Moreover, if your organization has enough members, then the blueprint will involve all those who would be needing to maintain the security practices.
3. Prioritize Your Applications
After finalizing the security blueprint of your applications, the next step is to prioritize your applications. Sort all the systems and applications of your organization on the basis of their usefulness. And it is no surprise that you doubt it now, but it will be really helpful when your list of applications increases in the future. Prioritizing the applications will help you save a lot of your crucial time and will help you simplify the management process. Hence, it would help if you prioritized the applications on the basis of three categories, viz. Critical, Serious, and Normal.
The critical applications would be those which contain all the vital information of your valuable customer’s data. These types of applications should be managed first as attackers would be most interested in hacking all your valuable customer’s information. Next are the various applications that comprise internal and external applications that contain some vital information of your organization like tax details, financial details, your employee’s critical data, etc. last but not least is the normal applications that have minimal chances of getting attacked.
4. Conduct Regular Threat Assessments
Scanning all your applications to analyze possible future threats is also one of the crucial steps you need to follow when aiming for a secured application system. For if your organization’s systems are not scanned regularly, then the chances of attacks increase exponentially. Hence, you should periodically run a threat assessment in your organization to get an idea regarding all the upcoming future threats for your organization. Furthermore, if your organization is small, you may not consume a lot of time scanning the threats, but if it is large enough, you may have to invest a lot of your crucial time and valuable resources.
Also, if you are sure that some of your applications are well updated, there is no need to invest time in scanning those applications. Hence, you can include automation in your scanning processes to eliminate the wastage of time. Moreover, you can also leverage the continuous integration and delivery process to test different parts of your security process and save a lot of time.
5. Invest in Cybersecurity Training
Investing in recent cybersecurity training is also one of the vital aspects that you can consider while aiming for an enhanced security system. Although testing, looking for gaps, and fixing all the security issues are vital to organizing your working operations, the human factor is also crucial. However, most of the companies neglect this vital human aspect and, as a result, suffer failure in terms of security. A recent survey reveals that almost 30% of the employees of some leading IT firms do not even know what malware attacks are or what phishing is.
However, despite all the things you do to ensure the security of your applications, you may fail miserably. That’s because your application’s security greatly depends on all those employees that handle it. Hence, to prevent that, you must invest in the top ongoing security training to train your employees perfectly over cybersecurity threats, phishing, malware attacks, and so on. Furthermore, never forget to train your employees on the importance of strong passwords and guidelines on email and social media usage.
6. Encrypt all your Crucial Data
Encryption is a common practice of the digital world that has provided immense security benefits to a multitude of organizations. And this practice of encrypting the application’s data is becoming more common as the global market is moving towards the cloud. The encryption technique utilizes a set of instructions that makes it impossible for the other person to read your data without cryptographic keys.
That’s why leveraging the encryption technique must be a crucial aspect of your future security strategy while securing your organization’s applications. And that’s completely normal if you don’t know the basic procedure of encrypting the data. You can simply start by encrypting small applications and can gradually extend the process with time. Else, you can leverage an experienced software engineering firm like Matellio to encrypt your data and enhance your organization’s security.
7. Perform Security Penetration Testing
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Penetration testing can be a great help in improving the security of your business processes. Penetration testing is a robust way to check for faulty security gaps that could prove disastrous for your organization. That’s why people involved in penetration testing are also referred to as white hackers. These white hackers provide the best ways to ensure a secure and efficient security system.
Penetration testing involves the utilization of various powerful security tools like OWASP Zed Attack Proxy (ZAP), Wireshark, Kali Linux, and so on. Additionally, the penetration tests also include some advanced custom tools and a lot of manual work. And as penetration testing is of an invasive type, it often leads to frequent system downtime. However, penetration security testing efficiently captures all vulnerabilities and gaps of your applications and lists them per their level of danger.
8. Embrace Automation to Mitigate Vulnerabilities
Automation is a much-needed factor in today’s digital world. Automation techniques simplify your working operations and save a lot of crucial trim and other vital resources. Not only that, but this powerful practice also speeds up your security services and your risk mitigation practice. Also, it helps to integrate various powerful third-party systems in your existing core applications to enhance their security and operational efficiency.
You can seamlessly leverage the automation processes to rectify your risk assessment processes and streamline your security services. Furthermore, the automation technique also helps you to seamlessly scan and track your applications and generate effective security reports. And the best-case scenario, the automation technology can even help you track the issues and provide effective solutions to all those issues.
9. Use Cookies Efficiently
Cookies are another crucial aspect that is mostly neglected by a large fraction of global organizations. Cookies are extremely vital not only for the businesses but for the users as well. They help the users be remembered by the sites and offer the sites to provide a personalized experience to valuable users. However, despite the popularity and effectiveness of the cookies, hackers utilize them seamlessly to gain access to the protected areas.
Although you need not stop the usage of cookies, you only need to adjust the settings to minimize the risks for your organization. For instance, you just never use cookies to store any critical information of your organization, like passwords and other customer details. Also, make it a habit to encrypt all the information you store in the cookies for enhanced security services.
10. Introduce a Bounty Program
Last but not least, introducing a bounty or, to be more precise, a responsive security program will also help you achieve your security targets for the organization. Even if you have enough security experts in your organization, it is still possible that you may not be able to see all the security gaps prevailing in your organization.
Therefore, you need to include all the reviews and feedback of the users that utilizes your applications. You can even encourage your community to find and resolve all the issues of your application, and in return, can offer them a monetary value.
Final Takeaway
To conclude, we can say that security is one of the crucial aspects of today’s digital world. Often enterprises neglect this most vital aspect and, as a result, suffer failure and losses. A robust security system helps to mitigate the losses due to security failures and helps to enhance the brand value of your organization in the global market. Therefore, as a marketer and the owner of an organization, you should only invest in secured and fully compliant applications. At Matellio, we offer powerful custom software applications that are secured and safe from every aspect. Our certified QA testers ensure that your application runs smoothly over your desired platform and fits best in your organization. With our qualified team of developers and experts, you can be sure of the security of your enterprise applications. Still have questions? Get in touch with our experts over a 30-min free consultation call today!
