Effectively Implementing App Protection

March 14, 2018 4458 Views Gabriel Torok

Development’s Journey to Effectively Implementing App Protection

Because data is created, accessed, and changed through applications, hardening and shielding your applications is a key component to protecting your data. Adding application protection to your secure software development lifecycle will make it more difficult for people and machines to exploit them. But, what are the factors to consider when thinking about application risk? Effective application risk management is a sustained, consistent practice and technology selection and implementation is a specialized discipline within that practice. The initial steps below offer a roadmap to selecting and implementing application hardening and shielding as a part of a broader application risk management program.

The full Infographic in pdf form is available here.

Does app have intellectual property?

Does app gate access to value?

Does app access private information?

Is the app subject to regulation?

Does app run in an untrusted environment?

Protect against IP theft

Mask vulnerabilities

Protect against data theft

Hinder tampering and fraud

Reduce piracy

Features

Services

Viability

Focus

Longevity and viability of company

Support offered

Reputation

Internal references

External references

Features

Support services

Ease of integration

Internal references

Validation against requirements

For additional steps, download the full Development Buyer Guide for Application Protection PDF.

Today, application hardening and layered security measures are recognized as a critical feature of overall IT compliance. In addition to feature, quality, and cost requirements, development organizations must additionally:

Implement preventative, detective, and responsive controls to manage evolving application risks,

Document proof of effective risk management meet future audit requirements,

Re-evaluate supply chain risk when selecting third party technologies and applications, and

Respond to market forces as user organizations incorporate their own risk management requirements into their selection and evaluation criteria.

Make sure you understand the threats and get familiar with applicable standards and regulations; and implement app development best practices to boost basic security for all your apps worth protecting.

Learn more about shielding mobile or IOT apps here.

And, learn more about shielding desktop or server applications here.

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Malicious actors — like any thieves — live by a simple rule: If the front door is locked, break the window.

It’s why threats like fileless malware and crypto-jacking have seen substantial gains over last few years. It’s why — despite increasing employee education and IT training — hackers are still hooking phish by developing more sophisticated and authentic-looking email spoofs. Cybercriminal communities, meanwhile, continue to grow on the dark web, allowing attackers to share info, purchase exploit kits and identify potential targets.

What does this mean for CISOs? That typical defense efforts are being outpaced as familiar attack vectors are replaced with non-traditional threats. But it’s not all bad news; here are three questions every CISO needs to ask to help close the doors, bolt the windows and leave hackers out in the cold.

Gabriel, you have been in the security industry for over 2 decades. You have seen many different tools and services. Why create a company around something as specific as obfuscation and in-app protection?

Our customers build a lot of really innovative apps that enable their users and customers to do new and cool things. These apps frequently run on untrusted client computers/devices and they control access to customer’s sensitive data or critical devices.

And after all the effort of designing, building, debugging, and deploying their applications, the last thing they want is for an attacker to steal their work or use it to look for vulnerabilities to break into their system.

Long ago, we built a Java code optimizer, but it became clear to us that our customer cared more about the obfuscation effects of the optimization than the actual performance improvement. That is when we really began to focus on app protection. First with Java, then .NET, Android, iOS, Xamarin, JavaScript, etc.

Gartner calls In-App Protection “crucial” in their July 2019 Market Guide for In-App Protection In-App Protection. The guide’s summary advises security and risk management leaders to “take due care in protecting their application clients” in order to avoid “security failure.”

This raises the question – what constitutes “due care?” Obviously, no development organization looks to recklessly expose their applications or sensitive data to attack or compromise. On the other hand, over-engineered (or poorly engineered) security controls can quickly lead to excessive development costs, performance and quality issues, and, ultimately, unacceptable user experiences. While terms and terminology may vary, there is broad consensus on how to best define “due care” for any given application/user scenario.

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Gabriel, you have been in the security industry for over 2 decades. You have seen many different tools and services. Why create a company around something as specific as obfuscation and in-app protection?

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