Application Security Testing Is Assuming Significance More Than Ever
While data security and network security have been mature security disciplines, application security is joining the list with Consumerization of IT presenting a great challenge in terms of security for IT decision makers. Most enterprises have increased their focus towards application security and there emerged several application security technologies and processes to cut down the risk of potential threats. The requirement for application security testing is assuming prominence more than ever. It helps enterprises to find out the security vulnerabilities through a wide-range of tests that discover vulnerabilities and evaluates the overall security risk of applications.
As the potential impact of security issues gets higher as we get deeper into the software life cycle, testing should be involved right from the early stages for effective application security. There also emerged several application security tools that evaluate code and runtime interfaces for exploitable vulnerabilities. While effective implementation of application security testing is quite essential, there is a need for enterprises to take the responsibility of ensuring the security and quality of their applications. Developers often think or claim that they are responsible only for functionality of the applications, while security is by-default expected out of QA and testing teams performing functional testing. It should be realized that quality is an enterprise-wide effort and not a single person or teams responsibility.
Application security is a must and enterprises should be fully equipped to face the threats from the hackers. Most security vulnerabilities are often the result of mismanagement and mistakes. While there are several security offerings in the market, they alone cant get the job done. It requires a mix of right skill sets and right use of required tools to tone down the risk of internal and external attacks. A comprehensive security testing approach that spans the entire application life cycle and evaluates several supporting elements like network, databases, and operating systems, should be implemented. One best and easiest way to focus on the security aspects would be to get onboard a third-party vendor with necessary expertise in security testing.