As organizations increasingly depend on software to drive critical functions, application security (AppSec) has shifted from a secondary consideration to a fundamental necessity. Yet, over half 59% of AppSec teams feel that today’s complex attack surfaces are unmanageable, especially given the rapid rise of Generative AI (GenAI) in development workflows and the growing reliance on open-source components.
With the rapid pace of development and deployment intensifying these challenges, can traditional security solutions keep up?
In this guide we answer that question and more, exploring essential aspects of application security, the types of tools available, key features, and best practices for building a resilient AppSec strategy.
What is Application Security?
Application security is a set of strategies and practices designed to protect applications from development to deployment. This multi-layered approach encompasses a variety of measures, including code analysis, configuration management, pipeline security, and application security testing (AST), all aimed at ensuring that applications are secure from the earliest stages of development to production and beyond.
A more holistic approach to application security, Application Security Posture Management (ASPM), combines these functions into a unified platform, providing visibility and continuous monitoring across the entire software development lifecycle (SDLC). We explore ASPM in more detail later in the article. If you don’t want to wait, you can jump down the page.
What is an Application Security Tool?
AppSec teams face numerous challenges today, including limited visibility into potential risks and an ever-increasing volume of vulnerabilities in application code, dependencies, and configurations. Application security tools are designed to address these challenges by providing capabilities to identify, prioritize, and remediate vulnerabilities across the SDLC.
These tools protect application code, open-source libraries, third-party components, and configuration settings from security threats, enabling security teams to proactively manage risks, streamline processes, and maintain security within agile development environments.
But traditional point solutions often lead to tool sprawl, with the average team using 50 security tools across their security and development teams. This creates unnecessary noise and can lead to alert fatigue, making it difficult to focus on high-priority threats. In fact, 67% of security professionals say managing multiple different security tools is challenging.
Types of Application Security Tools
Fortunately, modern AppSec tools have evolved significantly in recent years, filling gaps left by legacy solutions. Let’s explore the various types of solutions – including an all-in-one platform.
Tool Type | Main Function | Purpose | Benefits |
Application Security Testing (AST) | Identifies vulnerabilities during various development stages using SAST, SCA, etc. | Detect and resolve security issues early in the SDLC to reduce risks and costs associated with late-stage remediation. | Prevents vulnerabilities from reaching production, improves code quality, and ensures early detection and resolution of issues. |
Threat Intelligence & Vulnerability Management | Leverages global threat data to identify and prioritize vulnerabilities. |