Staying safe online can be a slippery slope. Even if you understand cybercriminals' gimmicks, you could make a simple mistake and suffer severe consequences. It helps to secure your applications and protect your data in unfavorable circumstances.
Application security sets precedence to mitigate cyber threats and vulnerabilities before they occur. How does it do this and what benefits does it offer?
What Is Application Security?
Application security is the implementation of policies, procedures, and processes to secure your software and hardware applications to prevent internal and external threats. It begins from the app's development stage and runs through its lifespan.
Application security uses a standard checklist containing security protocols of acceptable practices within an application. Prohibited activities and devices are blacklisted from entering or operating within the application.
Types of Application Security
There are various types of application security such as web application security, cloud application security, and mobile application security.
Web Application Security
Web applications are software and services you use on a browser with an internet connection. Since the data is transmitted via the remote servers of an internet connection, web applications are vulnerable to all kinds of attacks.
Web application security is a method for securing data on your website by blocking its endpoints against unauthorized access. Effective web application security prevents downtime. Even when your application is under attack, it still functions without jeopardizing the user experience.
Cloud Application Security
Cloud technology allows you to use multiple tools and services to store and access your data for optimal operations without building and managing these services yourself. Since you'd usually share cloud applications with others, the cloud services have numerous access points that hackers can leverage.
Cloud application security instills policies and processes to secure active services in the cloud and its host systems. Attacks on cloud applications are usually severe because they impact multiple networks on the service.
Mobile Application Security
Mobile applications are very popular among individuals. You probably have several applications you use regularly on your smartphone. Using these tools without security is a recipe for disaster as intruders seek illegitimate ways to retrieve your data.
Mobile application security offers multiple security layers to protect your applications from intrusions. It begins with restricting access to only authorized users and then blocks third-party networks from intercepting your connection to retrieve your data.
How Does Application Security Work?
Application security implements various security controls to verify users’ identities as they engage with your system. Malicious and illegitimate users fail the verification processes and are unable to proceed.
Here are some application security techniques:
Encryption
Encryption is the process of transforming plain data into a coded format, so users can only view or understand it after they decrypt it. This is an essential part of application security because threat actors could use advanced hacking techniques such as brute force to enter your network and see your data. But when you encrypt your data, it’s of no use to them so far they can’t decrypt it.
In data encryption, the sender and receiver of the data assign cryptographic keys to the information they are protecting. The receiver can easily decrypt the data since they have the keys.
Authentication
Authentication is a standard procedure for verifying the legitimacy of a user trying to access your application. A common application security method, a user needs to enter the username and password they generated when signing up to your system to access their account. The system runs a background check to confirm that the login credentials are authentic.
Hackers have gotten better at bypassing the standard username and password single authentication, so you need to implement stronger methods like multi-factor authentication that add additional security layers. Besides entering their username and password, a user may need to provide a one-time password (OTP) your system generates and sends to their phone or email.
Authorization
Authorization works in line with authentication. It’s the process of running a user’s credentials through the list of legitimate users and confirming whether they are on the list. Authorization allows for more streamlined access control. It verifies a user’s access privilege to specific areas of your system.
A user passing the authentication shouldn’t automatically grant them access to all the resources in your system, especially when you have sensitive data. To access delicate resources, they need to undergo an authorization pass.
What Are the Benefits of Application Security?
All systems are vulnerable by default—this explains why there are residual and inherent risks. Application security checkmates existing and potential risks and ultimately enhances your system in the following ways.
Offers Default Security
Phishing attacks where threat actors trick people into compromising their data or system happen daily. Some victims may have a high level of cybersecurity awareness but still fall for these antics because no one is infallible. It’s important that you have default security settings that are independent of users’ actions.
Application security focuses on securing active applications. It considers various possible threats that may occur on the system and erects defenses to push back. For instance, an email security system can detect malicious emails and send them to spam without allowing you to see them in the first place. Some tools will block harmful links and attachments from opening even when you click on them.
Ensures Data Privacy
One major reason anyone, especially cybercriminals, would want to hack your system is so they can access your data. They wouldn’t waste their time plotting an attack on your system if you didn’t have valuable data.
Application security helps you build security walls around your application. And if intruders manage to bypass those walls, it also secures your data with techniques like encryption, so they can’t view or read your data. This privacy prevents sensitive data exposure and ransomware attacks.
Builds User Trust and Confidence
One would think that the biggest networks would be the most secure, but they have come under attack, exposing users’ data. You don't earn user trust and confidence with the size of your network, but by proving to them that they are safe on your platform.
If you have been using a particular platform for a while, and you haven’t experienced any form of breach or attack, you would develop some level of trust and confidence in it.
Application security offers a level-playing field of security. No matter how big or small your system is, you can protect yourself and other users by implementing the available application security measures within your environment.
Resolve Specific Threats With Application Security
To get the most out of application security, you must test it regularly to ensure it functions effectively. This is key as little changes on your system can alter its operations.
Application security offers additional security layers beyond what you have on the ground in your network, ensuring that each application doesn't harbor vulnerabilities. This helps to identify and resolve specific threats on time.