How can you ensure application security with emerging threats?

1 Adopt a secure development lifecycle

A secure development lifecycle (SDL) is a framework that integrates security into every stage of the software development process, from planning and design to testing and deployment. By following an SDL, you can identify and mitigate security risks early, reduce the cost and complexity of fixing vulnerabilities, and improve the quality and reliability of your software. Some best practices include conducting a threat modeling exercise to assess potential threats and vulnerabilities, implementing secure coding standards and guidelines to avoid common security flaws, using code analysis tools and scanners to detect security issues in source code, libraries, and dependencies, performing regular security testing and audits such as penetration testing, vulnerability scanning, and code review to verify the security of the application and its components, and deploying security patches and updates promptly to address any known vulnerabilities or exploits.

3 Monitor and respond to incidents

Monitoring and responding to incidents are essential for detecting and mitigating security breaches while minimizing the impact and damage. Monitoring involves collecting and analyzing data and logs from an application and its environment, such as network traffic, user activity, system performance, and error messages. Responding involves taking appropriate actions to contain, investigate, and resolve incidents. To ensure effective monitoring and responding to incidents, you should use monitoring tools and platforms such as SIEM, IDS/IPS, and APM to collect data and logs from various sources. Additionally, incident response plans and procedures such as NIST SP 800-61 or ISO/IEC 27035 can help define roles, responsibilities, and steps for handling incidents. Finally, incident response teams and tools like CERT or SOAR can coordinate incident response activities like analysis, containment, eradication, recovery, and lessons learned. Application security is not a one-time task but an ongoing process that requires secure development lifecycle, encryption/authentication techniques, as well as monitoring/responding to incidents to keep up with emerging threats.

4 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?