The challenges of web application security are well known, but they’re still all too common out in the real world. Age-old vulnerabilities are still exploited as bad actors use automation to probe the Internet looking for potential exploit victims. In a fast-moving digital economy where speed to market is key, most development teams don’t have the resources to sufficiently protect against the onslaught of attacks at each vector—or the level of expertise needed to address every vulnerability quickly and accurately. The need to address these vulnerabilities over and over, in every application that goes out the door, is a significant blocker in your path to production. And because applications are the pathway to your data, protecting your business means it’s critical
that you understand the potential risks.
These vulnerabilities are typically persistent, long-standing problems created by technical debt or the existence of layers of complex dependencies—often third party and open source software—which require dedicated time and resources to remedy. As a result, the vulnerabilities are often never addressed: When the main objective of application development is to push out new features, it’s difficult to build remediations into every new application update that is shipped.
Fortunately, there are options. Having the right tools and third-party controls in place can go a long way toward mitigating risk—and speeding development of your applications at the same time.
The pervasive nature of web application security shortcomings has not gone unnoticed. In 2001, a number of security professionals banded together to create the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) to educate developers and security professionals with the goal of reducing these security shortcomings. OWASP is a nonprofit international group that produces publicly available methodologies, documentation, tools, and training addressing many aspects of web application security.
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