Guide to Cost-Effective Application Security
Having worked across different sectors and served a wide range of clients in my cybersecurity career, I’ve been able to obtain valuable insight on how organizations establish their application security programs. While application security processes remain the same in organizations, the implementation and toolsets used differs a lot, with expensive commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) software incorporated into their application security ecosystems. While I see an uptick in free and open-source tools (FOSS) being considered for evaluation in organizations, it’s generally limited to small use cases and does not convert into larger adoption in their application security processes.
Fortunately, with the FOSS ecosystem maturing in the Application security landscape, I’ve come to realize that it is possible for FOSS to be a major driver in implementing application security within organizations of all sizes. In this article, I shall provide an outline about the benefits and risks of adopting open-source tools along with popular open-source tools used in key application security activities.
Benefits and Risks
Organizations can significantly benefit from free and open source tools in application security due to their cost-effectiveness, transparency, and community support. Cost-effectiveness is a key driver for smaller organizations. These tools often provide robust security features without the high costs associated with proprietary solutions, making them accessible for organizations of all sizes. The open-source nature allows for greater transparency, enabling users to review and customize the code to meet their specific security needs. Moreover, the active communities around these tools contribute to continuous improvement, timely updates, and shared knowledge, enhancing overall security posture.
However, relying on open-source tools also presents certain risks. The lack of dedicated support can lead to delays in addressing critical vulnerabilities. Additionally, not all open-source projects are maintained with the same rigor, potentially resulting in outdated or insecure code. Organizations must also be cautious of integrating unvetted open-source components, as these can introduce vulnerabilities into their systems. Therefore, a balanced approach, combining open-source tools with thorough evaluation and robust security practices, is essential. This article on How to choose the right Cyber security solution can offer important insights for organizations to conduct evaluation on the tools under consideration and select the most appropriate one.
Popular Tools
These are primary application security activities that I’ve seen implemented across organizations, which are mapped to the various stages of an Application Security Lifecycle:
Here are some free and open-source alternatives that can be utilized by organizations to execute these activities:
- Security Requirements Management: Open Source Requirements Management Tool
- Threat Modeling: Microsoft Threat Modeling Tool, OWASP Threat Dragon, ThreatSpec
- Static Application Security Testing (SAST): SonarQube (Community Edition), Bandit, APISecurity.io, Bearer, Betterscan, Find Security Bugs, Graudit, Horusec
- Software Composition Analysis: CycloneDX and DependencyTrack
- Secret Scanning: TruffleHog, GitSecrets
- Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST): OWASP ZAP, Nuclei, OSTE-Meta-Scan
- Penetration Testing: It’s conducted manually, but supplemented with DAST tools.
- Runtime Application Self-Protection (RASP): OpenRASP
- Web Application Firewall (WAF): ModSecurity, OWASP Coraza, Open-appsec
Other Considerations
For the sake of simplicity, I’ve excluded infrastructure reviews from the Application Security Lifecycle. However, some organizations integrate these reviews as part of a broader Secure Software Development Lifecycle (SSDLC). In such cases, the following activities can be integrated into the lifecycle:
While designing and implementing their Application Security lifecycle, organizations would also need to take cognizance of integrating the tools with the security governance, monitoring and issue tracking systems to ensure that the tools are governed and comply with the enterprise security standards.
Conclusion
In conclusion, organizations should seriously consider leveraging free and open-source tools in their Application Security lifecycle. However, the risks need to be evaluated and mitigating measures should be established to ensure that the Application Security activities running atop the open-source tools are performing effectively to achieve the organization’s objectives.
Like what you read? Do consider following Cyber Security Advocacy where I publish weekly articles to share my knowledge and experience from over a decade in Cybersecurity.
