What to Do When You Need AppSec Right Now – Security Boulevard

Its 2020. If youre developing applications, you need application security. Period.

This is an important message with high stakes. Yet, because we live in a world where things move fast, teams are stretched, budgets are tight and the pressure is on to deliver, its no surprise many organizations dont have the type of bulletproof AppSec program they need in place. Whether youre starting from scratch or are in the process of building out a security program, a single vulnerability in the software development lifecycle (SDLC) can jeopardize the security of an entire application.

The modern software development lifecycle is complex. Continuous integration and continuous delivery mean you need to be continuously scanning for vulnerabilities. You need to close the security chasm and avoid potential risk to critical business applications, including the overall impact on business. But theres cost, time and complexity associated with onboarding your first vulnerability discovery tools. So, you need a variety of resources to successfully execute consistent, comprehensive security scans. All this can lead to serious security paralysis when trying to institutionalize an implementation policy.

Youd think this calls for careful planning and meticulous implementation of a comprehensive program for risk-based vulnerability orchestration across applications and infrastructure. Youre not wrong, but you cant wait. So, whats a Dev or Ops team to do?

Heres some good news. Companies with an emerging or growing AppSec and vulnerability management program can bootstrap their efforts with open source software (OSS). No commercial offerings required. Companies can use a wide range of OSS scanning tools to quickly integrate across all phases of the SDLC and immediately reduce business risk. There are software composition analysis (SCA) tools to automate visibility into open source components. Static application security testing (SAST) tools analyze developers code, and dynamic application security testing (DAST) looks for vulnerabilities in deployed software. And open source cloud management scanning can validate the security of applications deployed across AWS environments.

Using open source tooling for rapid AppSec enables you to jumpstart and accelerate critical security initiatives without taking a big bite out of your two scarcest resources: money and time. The scanning tools are freeit doesnt get any more cost-effective than that. And without the complex onboarding typically associated with commercial toolsets, you can deploy application security programs rapidly.

Of course, this is just the first step in building a robust, closed-loop discovery and remediation process across your organization, but it is a big first step. Immediately plugging your AppSec gaps gives you a head start on integrating application scanning across the SDLC to ensure business risk is managed effectively. From there, you can focus on building out your program to better manage overall business risk and drive security into DevOps with capabilities such as compression and ingestion to prioritize units of development work, target discovery and application mapping, security governance through policy configuration and more.

ZeroNorths solution for Rapid AppSec delivers a set of out-of-the-box OSS scanning tools to help address security through all phases of the SDLC, including both developer and third-party components. By embedding these tools directly within the platform, you can get started even fasterand youll use a central platform to manage all those AppSec scan tools and to help prioritize areas of risk across the SDLC.

Visit the ZeroNorth booth (#5360 in Expo Hall North) to get a demo of our risk-based vulnerability orchestration platform around Rapid AppSec and Open Source Tooling. Youll see first-hand how you can reduce business risk by quickly integrating security scanning across the SDLC and how, with open source scan tools embedded directly within the platform, you can jumpstart critical initiatives without the need for commercial offerings. If youd like to schedule a time to meet at the show, weve got an easy meeting request form available now.

Not going to RSA? No problem. You can request a demo of the Rapid AppSec solution at any time.

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What to Do When You Need AppSec Right Now - Security Boulevard