An Introductory Guide To Application Security Tools

Now that we have started the conversation about Game of Thrones, let us ask you a question: what comes to your mind when you hear about White Walkers? The powerful cold-blooded creatures who were humanity’s biggest enemy and could destroy anything in their path?

What if we said that there is a huge possibility that the cyber world can also be taken over by the White Walkers of the cyber world? (Yes, they exist!) Well, fret not; we have Night’s Watch of the cyber world aka Application Security Tools (just like the one in Game of Thrones but slightly more powerful) to protect software applications from evils.

From initial designing to operational deployment to ongoing maintenance, Application Security Tools can help you find and fix vulnerabilities in your software applications to protect you and your customers against data breaches. They act as the Night’s Watch that looks after the minute activities far behind the wall (read: software application life cycle) and check if any White Walker (read: malware) can potentially attack your applications.

Stay tuned as we move ahead to the north end of the continent to know what Application Security Tools are, their origin, working, types, benefits and future. #PowerIsPower

Let’s Start With The Basics: What Are Application Security Tools?

Before getting into the nitty-gritty of Application Security Tools, let’s first get a closer view of application security. Well, it is a method that focuses on protecting applications and protocols by identifying application function and data flow, business logic, access controls and authorization flaws. In short, application security (or AppSec) is used to secure applications across their life cycle.

Do you know the speed of modern software development has pointed toward the need for automated application security? This is where Application Security Tools aka Night’s Watch of the cyber world, comes into the picture. Application Security Tools safeguard software applications against external threats throughout the application lifecycle. Similar to thousands of people in seven kingdoms, many applications need to be protected against data theft or other malicious activities. These include legacy, desktop, cloud and mobile applications used by internal employees, partners and consumers – and yet Application Security Tools cover every endpoint!

We all know that Night’s Watch in Game of Thrones had a long history. Now, it’s time to know about the history of the Night’s Watch of the cyber world.

The Roots For Application Security Tools

There was not much concern about computer security in the 1970s and 1980s. Back then, the biggest dangers were physical security, theft and access to confidential documents. The major issue before the use of computers was the encryption and decryption of messages.

Bob Thomas created a program called The Creeper in 1971, which jumped between network nodes and left the message “I AM THE CREATOR: GET ME IF YOU CAN” on each machine. Following its spread to ARPANET, Ray Tomlinson wrote the program that erased the message and named it “The Reaper”.

Not much time later, JavaScript was integrated into Netscape in 1995, beginning the steady march toward the World Wide Web era. With the increased reactivity and interactivity of websites, older websites that delivered simple documents over the internet became unpopular. This led to better web applications replacing the older ones.

The first SQL Injection (SQLi) was discovered in 1988 by cybersecurity researcher and hacker Jeff Forristal. Then hackers started exploiting applications using Cross-Site Scripting (XSS), another prevalent attack vector.

Application security was implemented to safeguard against web assaults in the early 2000s, resulting in the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) being established in 2001. This project provided important insights and tools marking the advent of Application Security Tools – the Night’s Watch of the cyber world. #LetTheWatchBegins

Now that its timeline is clear, it’s time to know how the Night’s Watch operated – the cyber one!

Working Of Application Security Tools

We all know that the Night’s Watch in Game of Thrones safeguards the seven kingdoms from the White Walkers. They do it by securing the Great Wall, right? Well, how about the Night’s Watch of the cyber world?

The process consists of four stages:
 

• Assess

  In order to determine the current security state of the application, security analysts identify the application’s servers and databases, check their configurations for vulnerability, evaluate the risk those vulnerabilities pose and look at how the data and applications are employed.

• Choose The Software

  Once the security analyst detects the vulnerabilities, the next step is to select suitable Application Security Tools to remediate them. Since there are several paid and free tools on the market, it is critical to select the best one for your organization.

• Monitor

  Once the software is installed across the enterprise, security analysts continually monitor its output to ensure that it is not negatively impacting the users and is detecting unusual security activity.

• Measure

  The final step is to measure the performance of Application Security Tools against defined KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to determine whether the selected tool can effectively protect the application against threats.

Until now, we have seen the working of the Night’s Watch; let’s move forward to know about its importance in protecting the seven kingdoms.

Importance Of Application Security Tools

Finding and fixing security issues as early and quickly as possible during the software development process is critical to ensuring your business’s security. Everyone makes mistakes (we are not talking about Game of Thrones season 8!), so finding them promptly can be beneficial.

Application Security Tools integrate into the application development environment and make the process and workflow simpler and more security effective. These tools are also beneficial if you are doing compliance audits since they save a lot of time and money by identifying issues before the auditors see them. #Smart

The sharp rise in the application security sector has been assisted by the altered approach to building enterprise apps in recent years. An app can be refined daily, in some cases hourly, using new working methods called continuous deployment and integration. Therefore, Application Security Tools help businesses and developers quickly adapt to an ever-changing world and find security issues.

Now, let’s take a sneak peek into its future to know what the next change could be for Application Security Tools.

The Future Of Application Security Tools

By Winter we mean new security threats! Many enterprises have been using multiple Application Security Tools to tackle different threats so far. We expect that soon a single tool will be able to fight multiple vulnerabilities. Moreover, with more applications migrating to the cloud, the need for cloud-based application security systems will grow in the coming years.

No one can deny that automation will also play a significant role in the future. We expect that in terms of application security, organizations will move toward automation which will enable tasks that previously took several testers to be automated with the help of specially designed Application Security Tools. These tools will be integrated with advanced technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning algorithms so that they will know which threat is affecting the system and how to resolve it. Sounds pretty cool, right? (that was a winter pun!)

The Wrap

Today’s web is riddled with security vulnerabilities and attacks. Application Security Tools carry the responsibility of safeguarding your software applications like a true sworn Night’s Watcher. It can also assist you in meeting software compliance standards, detecting potential threats and keeping your data safe, secure and confidential. The cherry on the cake is these tools are designed to detect security loopholes before they become a problem. We hope this article has helped you to gain insights about Application Security Tools.

Now our watch has ended!