App security definition  

Application security includes measures that protect the app from potential cyber threats, vulnerabilities, and attacks that could not only hit the company’s brand but also could compromise sensitive data, among other issues. It is important to have effective application security management since many apps deal with personal information, financial data, and business processes. 

Common threats  

According to OWASP in 2021, the top 10 common threats were: 

1. Broken control access. Users were gaining access to or being able to modify data they shouldn’t have gotten their hands on. 
2. Cryptographic failures. Either there was no data encryption, or the existing encryption was broken or incomplete. 
3. Injection. In some cases, user data is not filtered, queries or calls are used directly in the interpreter, and hostile data is used directly, concatenated, or extracted. These actions make the applications prone to injection-related attacks. 
4. Insecure Design. The overall application architecture is not effective or even complete.  
5. Security misconfigurations. Either there are improper settings or there are unnecessary services in the application. 
6. Vulnerable and outdated components. It’s not advised to use libraries or apps that have reported vulnerabilities. 
7. Identification and authentication failures. Issues in either login, session, or the lack of MFA (multifactor authentication). 
8. Software and data integrity failures. Reported vulnerabilities in the app’s update processes or even data validation. 
9. Security login and monitoring failures. No logs should be stored locally, there is no alert management, the log data is not encoded, and there is a lack of monitoring. 
10. Server-side request forgery. Attackers can trick servers by making requests to their internal resources.  

You can also check out CWE’s top 10 KEV weaknesses.  

Application security types  

Let’s say there are three categories of application security: defense, testing, and deployment.  

Let’s start with defense: 

• Authentication: User access (adding username and password), MFA. 
• Authorization: Users should access only what they are authorized to. 
• Data encryption: Protecting sensitive data. 
• Input validation: Preventing malicious input to avoid attacks such as injections. 

Continuing with testing types of application security: 

• Static application security testing (SAST) involves analyzing the code prior to execution.  
• Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) is the process of testing an already operating application.  
• Software Composition Analysis (SCA): Determines the hazards in components.  
• Interactive application security testing (IAST) is a combination of SAST and DAST.  
• Mobile application security testing (MAST) involves looking for flaws in apps that operate on mobile devices. 

Now we finish with the deployment types: 

• Web application security 
• API security 
• Cloud-native application security 
• Mobile application security 

The process 

The AppSec process involves steps such as: 

• Risk assessment and planning 
• Securing the design and development 
• Reviewing the code  
• Security testing 
• Deploying and monitoring 

Benefits 

Among many benefits, we’ll include important ones such as preventing cyberattacks, sensitive data protection, reduction of financial and legal risks, better application performance, and compliance with regulations. If companies integrate application security in the application lifecycle, they can minimize the attacks, reduce potential issues, and create resistant applications.

Best practices 

Here’s a checklist example: 

• Validating input data, authentication and authorization 
• Enforcing data encryption  
• Regular security scans and resting  
• Manage vulnerabilities 
• Secure logging and monitoring 
• Teaching customers and employees the fundamentals of security 

Conclusion 

Cyberattacks are getting more advanced and common every year, so strong application security will matter more than ever. New tools already use AI to detect threats faster, and apps need to be secure even when running in the cloud or across different locations. 

PacKit is a game-changer when it comes to IT application security by automating and securing app packaging deployment. With Trusted signing, Intune detection rules, and integration across deployment tools, PacKit reduces risks and supports software security. This emphasizes why application security is important, since it secures the app experiences across systems.