With these current trends, we may anticipate a higher focus on application security in the future, and the trends for 2022 back up our prediction
We know that in 2021, several major events in application security happened, including the movement of applications to the cloud, the rise of remote employees using cloud-based applications, and an increase in the number of code vulnerabilities discovered.
The following article will go over the five application security trends we expect to see in the coming year. All the trends point to a higher focus on application security, and one thing to bear in mind is that security professionals will continue to be in short supply. Let’s look at some of the top application protection trends for 2022.
5 application security trends that we can expect in the following year
Trend 1: A Shift toward Cloud-Ready Security Solutions
In recent years, cloud usage has grown tremendously. Almost all firms were adopting cloud-based services before the epidemic. Cloud usage grew in tandem with the shift to remote work and the requirement to make corporate resources available to off-site personnel. For business applications, the cloud offers a variety of advantages, including flexibility, agility, and scalability, all of which are critical for enabling DevSecOps operations. Cloud security needs solutions that are created and built specifically for the cloud. To guarantee that rising usage of cloud computing and remote work does not put business assets and data at danger, companies are searching for security choices that are agile, adaptable, scalable, and configurable.
Trend 2: Improving Incident Detection and Response by Consolidating Security
The majority of security operations centres (SOCs) are overburdened. On a daily basis, the typical SOC receives 10,000 security warnings, considerably more than it can successfully triage, analyze, and remediate. As a result, actual threats are drowned out by false positive detections, wasting security experts’ work. The fact that many businesses’ security architecture is made up of fragmented, independent security solutions is a key contributor to alert overload. The contemporary business network is complicated, covering on-premise systems, cloud deployments, distant locations, mobile and Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and mobile and Internet of Things (IoT) devices.
A security architecture that is difficult to monitor and maintain is created by a variety of security solutions designed to handle specific concerns in a given context. Companies are striving to consolidate and simplify their security architectures as they upgrade their IT infrastructure. When security teams implement security solutions from a single vendor that cover corporate security demands throughout their entire IT environment, it is easier and more practicable for them to monitor and manage their security infrastructure, as well as efficiently detect and respond to possible problems.
Trend 3: APIs are the New Internet Facing Service
Web applications have been the focus of application security work in the past. Companies installed web application firewalls (WAFs) to safeguard Internet-facing assets from exploitation when the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) first published its top ten list for web application vulnerabilities. The corporate online attack surface has evolved from mostly web apps to a combination of web applications and web APIs over time. Companies are exposing more than half of their apps to the internet or third-party services via APIs, according to Forrester. While web APIs have many of the same vulnerabilities as web apps, they also have their own set of security issues. This fact prompted OWASP to publish a top ten list of API security concerns, as well as the creation of Web Application and API Protection (WAAP) solutions to replace older WAF technology.
Trend 4: The rise of Bot as-a-service provider
Bots are computer programs that interact with websites and online APIs. Bots are frequently used to automate cyber-attacks. A bot might be used in a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack or credential stuffing against an authentication service, for example. Bots can also be employed for illicit purposes, such as credit card fraud. Bot development involves a certain level of cybersecurity and programming expertise, which previously limited the number of attackers who could use them. Providers of Bot-as-a-Service now make hostile bots available to everyone, decreasing the barrier to launching these assaults.
Companies are seeking strategies to defend themselves from bots as they become more readily available. Bot management solutions are becoming an increasingly important part of an application security strategy to guarantee that bots aren’t used to attack an organization’s web-facing apps and APIs, or to waste resources that might be utilized to fulfil genuine requests.
Trend 5: API vulnerabilities in e-Health Apps
The increasing use of e-Health Apps has an inherent issue related to the security of the data and the transmission of personal information. Even more when the apps are connected to hospital records. In the report, All That We Let In, by approov.io it was found that “All of the apps were found to be vulnerable to API attacks, and some allowed access to electronic health records (EHRs).” The APIs are what connects a mobile app and a cloud service, physical server or hospital infrastructure and this can be easily compromised. While our understanding of API security has improved over the previous year, we can still expect API vulnerabilities to be the most common attack vector in 2022.
It’s a challenging effort for developers to eliminate these vulnerabilities using the few accessible simple fixes. On the other side, adversaries continue to enhance their API-targeted vulnerabilities. Organizations should become more aware of how these flaws are exploited and devise methods to safeguard API authorization procedures.
If you are interested in exploring security options for your app, get in contact with our team to discover our security solutions for apps.
