Application Security Posture Management
ASPM operates at the application layer, overseeing applications in both on-premises and cloud-based environments to detect and address potential security risks associated with these applications. ASPM focuses on managing the security posture of applications throughout their lifecycle.
ASPM is gaining importance due to several factors:
- Applications are becoming significantly more complex, especially at the enterprise level, which makes it more difficult to gain visibility into an application’s security posture.
- Organizations employ various security tools that span responsibilities and teams and are managed in silos — this obscures visibility into risk and makes establishing connections and managing the associated data challenging.
- Prioritizing vulnerability fixes is difficult for organizations because of the growing number and complexity of vulnerabilities that require holistic context. This necessitates a comprehensive perspective encompassing application and cloud security.
The rapid pace of development surpasses the capabilities of traditional application security methods, emphasizing the need for ASPM to keep up with the evolving landscape.
If you ask us, we would say that there are four core pillars an ASPM solution should include:
- AppSec orchestration: The ability to support the integration and operation of application security tools across the SDLC, enabling AppSec teams to define their company’s security posture with policies and guardrails while having visibility over the whole process.
- Application-centric design: The ability to understand the whole process of how developers write, build, deploy, and run their applications in order to build a complete picture of the application and how developers are making decisions.
- Risk and remediation management: Enable users to focus on the issues that pose the most risk to an application and the organization.
- Release governance: Understanding the application and risk profile while considering the business context so developers stay secure as they move through the development lifecycle. ASPM solutions should enforce guardrails, leading to better upfront software decisions, which reduces the number of vulnerabilities introduced in the first place.