Why You Need Application Security Testing for Business-Critical Applications: Part 2

This blog was originally published by Onapsis here.

In this blog series, we discuss the importance of building secure business-critical applications with application security testing. In part one, we shared that while speed is the driving force behind application development, on-time application delivery often comes at the cost of secure development. Getting an application out on time and on budget requires the right team. Today’s post will focus on how application security testing can eliminate blind spots when working with contractors and third-party developers.

Reason 2: Eliminate Blind Spots When Working With Contractors and Third-Party Developers

Cybersecurity Skills Shortage

While having the right team is essential, there simply aren’t enough cybersecurity professionals around. More than 57% of organizations have been impacted by the cybersecurity skills shortage, with the number of unfilled positions at 4.07 million worldwide. One of the top three areas of significant cybersecurity skills shortage is application security. With cyberattacks on business-critical applications like SAP only becoming more prevalent, this is not a good sign for the cybersecurity industry. Hiring application developers who have experience with platforms like SAP can be even more challenging. To fill this gap, organizations have to hire outsourced consultants, contractors, and system integrators.

Time-Consuming and Costly Processes

One of the challenges of employing external teams to work on code-testing is that it increases time and cost. For most organizations, security testing for SAP applications means manual security reviews, and with the average SAP system containing over two million lines of code, this isn’t practical. Given how time consuming these processes can be, there is potential for security due diligence to be rushed or skipped altogether in the interest of getting the project completed on time. This means that not only are businesses potentially developing SAP custom code and applications that may contain many errors, but this can be a long and costly process, when you’re paying outsourcing rates.

Break Silos

According to a recent Forrester study, more than a quarter of organizations indicated that improving application security is a top priority in 2022. However, 43% of organizations plan to implement an application security testing tool in the development process1 and only 31% are doing so in testing2. It is clear that security is often an afterthought, put in late into the development process, or not thought of at all. By implementing DevSecOps, everyone in the software development life cycle is responsible for security. The earlier security is inserted into the development process the earlier issues will be resolved and code will be developed faster and “cleaner” leading to faster development times and more secure applications.

Enterprises need to incorporate security into the development of their business-critical applications. An application security testing tool that supports SAP systems can help narrow the gap between developers and the security team and provide visibility and security into the development lifecycle.

Read Part 3 of this blog here.