Introduction to application vulnerabilities

Cloud is a critical part of almost every organization’s digital transformation plan. However, while it provides businesses with flexibility, scalability and agility, the cloud has also increased cybersecurity risks.

With the introduction of the cloud, organizations have expanded their attack surface exponentially. Meanwhile, poor visibility and fragmented strategies make it difficult to secure this new environment.

Protecting the cloud requires a different security model from the one protecting a typical on-premises environment. At the same time, organizations must continue to embrace a multi-faceted approach that protects every component within the cloud environment, be it endpoints, workloads, networks or applications. This is crucial for safeguarding data and ensuring operational continuity.

In this post, we focus on how organizations can improve overall cloud security posture through a better understanding of application vulnerabilities. Here we will discuss the nature of this risk, how it manifests, best practices and tools to help protect the organization and the technologies that are revolutionizing the capability.

What is an application vulnerability?

An application vulnerability is a gap, flaw or weakness within the application’s code that can be exploited by an adversary. Like other vulnerabilities, those that affect applications serve as a gateway to the organization’s network and systems, allowing a malicious actor to advance a cyber attack.

Unlike traditional software applications, today’s applications are connected across multiple networks as well as the cloud. This leaves them open to a wide number of cloud threats and vulnerabilities.

In the cloud, vulnerability management faces unique challenges that do not apply to traditional on-premises setups. Most notably, cloud services are ever-changing; IT teams are constantly provisioning and deprovisioning resources to meet scaling needs. These environments are also dynamic, with services and configurations that frequently change. As such, security teams require a high level of automation to manage routine tasks, as well as strong integration with other elements of the security strategy to effectively track and secure assets.

Types of Application Vulnerabilities

Any flaw or weakness within an application’s code, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, is exploitable. In this section we explore some of the most common application vulnerabilities found in cloud environments, though this is certainly not an exhaustive list.

• SQL injection: A SQL injection is a cyberattack that injects a string of malicious SQL code into an application, allowing the attacker to access or modify a database. (SQL is a language used in programming that is designed for data in a relational data stream management system.)
• Cross-site scripting (XSS): Cross-site scripting is a code injection attack in which an adversary inserts malicious code within a legitimate website. The code then launches as an infected script in the user’s web browser, enabling the attacker to steal sensitive information or impersonate the user.
• Broken authentication: Broken authentication occurs when a cyber attacker is able to authenticate the identity of a real user or circumvent authentication methods to gain access to the system through compromised credentials, security keys or passwords. By assuming the identity and permissions of an approved user, the cyber attacker is often able to move freely about the environment, stealing data, modifying systems or even setting backdoors to enable future access.
• Zero-day exploits: Zero-day exploits are a type of cyberattack that target vulnerabilities in popular software and operating systems that the vendor hasn’t patched to gain a foothold in the IT environment. Zero-day exploits are particularly challenging because in many cases, the software vendor is not even aware of the vulnerability, which means that customers’ systems are largely unprotected.
• Misconfigurations: As in traditional IT environments, one of the most common cloud-based vulnerabilities is misconfigurations. When applications are not deployed correctly, it may inadvertently create an access point for users, which can then be used to advance the attack plan.
• Insufficient logging and/or monitoring: In the latest CrowdStrike Global Threat Report, the average break out time of a cyberattack (the period of time from when an attacker gains access and begins to move laterally throughout the environment) was 62 minutes. Without robust log management or monitoring capabilities, it can take even longer for companies to realize they are under attack, giving e-criminals the opportunity to steal data, modify IT components, or plan malicious code.

Impact of Application Vulnerabilities

Application vulnerabilities that lead to a breach or security event can have serious consequences for organizations, including:

• Loss of data, sensitive information or intellectual property
• Disruption of operations
• High remediation costs
• Reputational harm and loss of customer trust
• Regulatory fines or penalties
• Legal actions and lawsuits
• Decrease in stock value
• Increased insurance premiums
• Decreased employee morale and productivity

Mitigation Strategies

Application vulnerabilities pose a significant risk to companies. However, there are steps organizations can take to reduce the likelihood of exploitable vulnerabilities and reduce the impact of an event, should one occur.

Conduct regular code audits and vulnerability assessments.

Vulnerability assessment is the ongoing, regular process of defining, identifying, classifying and reporting cyber vulnerabilities across endpoints, workloads, and systems. Key assessment components include:

• Maintaining an up-to-date inventory of all cloud assets and highlighting the most sensitive ones. Performing a threat assessment of all code and applications on a regular basis.
• Staying abreast of the most common threats and vulnerabilities that can target these assets and taking any available steps to protect the organization, such as through patching.
• Ensuring security metrics are clear and intuitive so that they can effectively measure application security and calculate risk.

Incorporate security within the development life cycle (DevSecOps).

DevSecOps is the practice of integrating security continuously throughout the software and application development lifecycle to ensure optimal security and performance efficiency. Key components of DevSecOps include:

• Conducting a risk/benefit analysis to determine the organization’s current risk tolerance.
• Creating an overarching, built-in security strategy that addresses existing vulnerabilities and known threats in the security landscape.
• Determining the security controls needed for the application.
• Automating recurring tasks within the security development and testing process.

Develop an effective patch management system.

Patch management is the process of identifying and deploying software updates, or “patches,” to a variety of endpoints, including computers, mobile devices, and servers.

An effective patch management process will consider the following elements:

• Reviewing security patch releases.
• Prioritizing patching efforts based on the severity of the vulnerability.
• Testing patch compatibility and installing multiple patches across all affected endpoints.

Invest in robust incident response capabilities.

Incident response (IR) is the steps used to prepare for, detect, contain, and recover from a data breach. Incident response planning often includes the following details:

• How incident response supports the organization’s broader mission
• The organization’s approach to incident response
• Activities required in each phase of incident response
• Roles and responsibilities for completing IR activities
• Communication pathways between the incident response team and the rest of the organization
• Metrics to capture the effectiveness of IR capabilities

Implement application security controls.

Application security controls are techniques that improve the security of applications at the code level, reducing vulnerability. Some application security controls include:

• Authentication: Confirming the user’s identity before granting access to a system.
• Encryption: Converting information or data into code to prevent unauthorized access.
• Logging: Examining user activity to audit incidents of suspicious activity or breach.
• Validity Checks: Making sure data entered and processed meets specific criteria.
• Access Controls: Limiting access to applications based on IP addresses or authorized users.

Establish least-privilege access.

The principle of least privilege (POLP) is a computer security concept and practice that gives users limited access rights based on the tasks necessary to their job. POLP ensures only authorized users whose identity has been verified have the necessary permissions to execute jobs within certain systems, applications, data and other assets.

As part of the POLP strategy organizations should also:

• Monitor endpoints and maintain an active endpoint directory
• Conduct a privilege audit to monitor privilege delegation and escalation
• Set default user access to minimal privileges
• Segregate accounts to create hard boundaries between high privilege accounts and basic profiles

Tools and Technologies

Even organizations that embrace a strong DevSecOps mindset may still produce code that has vulnerabilities. This is why it is important to leverage a variety of testing methods to find potential weaknesses within application source code that may be exploited by cyber criminals.

Static application security testing (SAST)

SAST is a form of application security testing that analyzes a variety of static inputs, including source code. SAST differs from dynamic testing in that it is performed early in the development lifecycle, as opposed to once an application has been executed. This allows developers to identify and address potential security risks before deployment, which can reduce the likelihood of the code containing exploitable vulnerabilities.

Dynamic application security testing (DAST)

On the other end of the testing spectrum is DAST. DAST is a form of “black box testing”, which means that the test does not require access to the code. Instead, the solution interacts with the application much like a user would, testing interfaces in real-time to find runtime vulnerabilities.  As noted above, in DAST, the application is tested after it is deployed and while it is running.

Both SAST and DAST are critical components within a comprehensive application security strategy. Organizations should rely on both practices, as well as some of the mitigation techniques mentioned above to effectively reduce the risk of an application-based attack.

Cloud-native security features

Another effective way to minimize the risk of application vulnerabilities is by using cloud-native security features offered by major cloud providers. These features include, but are not limited to continuous monitoring, automated threat detection and identity and access controls.

By leveraging these built-in security features and functionalities, organizations can:

• More quickly and effectively identify and mitigate vulnerabilities
• Enable faster response times and/or enable real-time protection
• Ensure compliance with industry standards and regulations
• Reduce the complexity and costs associated with application security

Regulations, Standards and Frameworks

As noted above, compliance is an important component of application security. While every organization is subject to different regulatory requirements depending on their location, industry, or access to personal information, many organizations have some form of compliance strategy.

Some key standards include:

• PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard): Comprehensive security standards that apply to any organization that accepts, processes, stores or transmits credit card data. This standard also establishes protocols for the prevention, monitoring, detection and response to security incidents.

Some key regulations include:

• GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation): A European Union regulation that offers data protection and privacy for all people in the region. This regulation was enacted to grant individuals more control over their personal information, as well as streamline regulatory processes for global businesses.
• HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act): A U.S. law that establishes privacy standards to protect a patient’s health information and medical records and maintain their integrity.

How adherence drives security

The unfortunate reality is that what constitutes strong security can be subjective. Some companies will inevitably cut corners, exposing their customers, users or patients and their data to cyber attackers.

Through the creation of these standards and others, government agencies and regulatory bodies essentially create clear and strict requirements for how companies interact with people and manage and use their data. In many cases, these standards also outline the specific circumstances under which an organization must disclose a breach and the steps they must take as a result.

Taken together, the foundational elements of these standards help organizations maintain a strong security posture and remain active in their fight against cybercrime. This can help reduce the likelihood and severity of an attack, including those that begin at the application level.

Future Trends

The advent of emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, behavioral analytics, machine learning, and exploit mitigation, is revolutionizing cloud application security, helping organizations protect against both known and unknown threats.

While legacy tools and systems use strings of characters called signatures that are associated with specific types of malware to detect and prevent further attacks of similar types, these new technologies enable more sophisticated prevention methods, protecting the organization from so-called “unknown threats” – or those without a recognizable signature.

This is important because sophisticated attackers have found ways around legacy defenses, such as by leveraging fileless attacks that use macros, scripting engines, in-memory, execution, etc., to launch attacks.

Predictions on the evolution of cloud security practices

The threat landscape is constantly evolving, which means that cybersecurity service providers must also adapt to stay a step ahead of adversaries. At present, one of the biggest drivers of change in the industry is the enterprise shift to cloud, which requires companies to adopt new cloud-specific security measures, as well as refine processes and protocols to ensure complete visibility, proper access and identity controls.

Here we outline some predictions on how cloud security practices will evolve in the immediate future:

1. Advancing technology will enable greater automation. AI-enabled tools will not only provide better detection of cloud-based threats, they can also power autonomous response and remediation efforts. This is an essential capability given that adversaries are also leveraging AI to increase the volume and complexity of their threats, which coupled with limited resources from IT teams, can lead to catastrophic results if left unremediated.
2. A Zero Trust architecture will become the norm. Zero Trust is a security framework requiring all users, whether in or outside the organization’s network, to be authenticated, authorized, and continuously validated for security configuration and posture before being granted or keeping access to applications and data. It is a significant departure from traditional network security which followed the “trust but verify” method. The integration of AI, ML, and behavior analytics in Zero Trust frameworks can further enhance their effectiveness by continuously analyzing access patterns and detecting anomalies.
3. Decentralized security models will be powered by blockchain technology. Blockchain technology, which establishes a transparent, tamper-proof ledger, can be used for recording security events to improve traceability. This decentralization, coupled with edge computing, will require companies to adopt new security strategies and tools to protect data integrity and reliability.

Key Considerations to Limit Application Vulnerabilities

While each organization's needs, challenges, risk tolerance, and objectives are distinct, several crucial factors must be taken into account when evaluating vulnerability management solutions.

Integration

Is the solution capable of integrating smoothly with other tools in the current cybersecurity stack and IT infrastructure?

Having tools that integrate well with each other provides enhanced security and more efficient processes by helping security teams communicate effectively with developers to speed remediation.

Scalability

What are the limitations?

It’s important to understand if a solution will work across the cloud service providers, deployment types, and programming languages that an organization uses.

Cost

How is the price calculated?

Vendors vary widely in how they determine pricing so it’s imperative to understand the pricing model…..

What is the total cost of ownership for the tool for an organization of your size? Does the solution reduce costs in other areas?

Many vendors offer ROI calculations that can help establish a business case for acquiring the tool.

Reputation

Does the vendor have any industry awards or analyst recognitions for this tool?

Analyst firms play a critical role in advancing many industries, including cybersecurity. Recognition from analysts indicates that a vendor is aligned with the latest advancements and key customer needs.

In addition to these factors, it is also important to embrace a culture of continuous education and training about emerging and evolving cloud security challenges, including application vulnerabilities. People are the first line of defense against cyber threats and an informed workforce that exhibits healthy online behaviors is essential for ensuring the entire IT environment is secure.

We recommend working with a reputable cybersecurity vendor to develop in-depth, interactive training that covers a broad range of topics, including cloud applications. These courses should be mandatory for all employees and conducted on a regular basis to ensure people understand the latest threat techniques and risks, how their behavior impacts the security of the organization and what to do if and when they encounter a suspicious event.

Taking the next step in cloud application security

Today’s threat landscape requires organizations to design and implement a comprehensive security solution that protects against an expanding array of threats and increasingly sophisticated attacks within the cloud environment, including those related to cloud applications. Here we offer several recommendations for organizations to assess and improve their current cloud security posture:

1. Understand the adversary. The first step to protecting the organization is understanding who their adversaries are, what they want, and how they operate. It is important to specifically consider how these adversaries operate in the cloud and what tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) they use.
2. Reduce exposure risk. The organization’s attack surface expands with every cloud-based application or workload that is added. To reduce the risk of exposure, companies need to do two things:
   1. Improve visibility across the entire cloud environment by maintaining an inventory of all cloud applications, workloads and other assets
   2. Limit the attack surface by continually searching for and removing cloud resources, application microservices, and APIsthat are not needed or obsolete.
3. Develop and implement a cloud application security policy, framework and architecture. For many organizations, the cloud is a new territory—and it requires its own security strategy. Companies should develop and implement cloud-specific policies, protocols, and procedures that ensure the ongoing security of all cloud-based assets through proper access, identity management, and continuous monitoring capabilities.

Given the urgency in addressing application vulnerabilities to safeguard against evolving cyber threats, it is imperative for organizations to act swiftly and comprehensively. Engaging with cybersecurity professionals is highly encouraged to enhance cloud application security, ensuring robust defenses against sophisticated attacks.