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Cyber threats are constantly evolving and increasing in terms of frequency and severity. In fact, the volume of web and application-specific attacks increased in 7 of the 10 most targeted industries in APAC last year. In addition, close to 95% of applications have been found to have some form of embedded vulnerability.
What is driving this worrying trend? It found that with companies investing heavily in securing various components of the enterprise IT infrastructure, the entry point for most of these capabilities is through web applications. These security positions leave a lot to be desired. Between the ongoing shortage of cybersecurity workers and an increasingly sophisticated threat landscape, web applications have slipped past the security radars of most businesses.
As the payoff for a successful exploit grows exponentially, the incentives for malicious actors to carry out these attacks grow in tandem. A single breach can have a devastating impact on an organization, be it financial, reputational or even legal. In particular, a hit to a brand’s reputation can be the death knell for any company that experiences a data breach.
Despite the current landscape, it’s important to note that this isn’t necessarily the be-all and end-all. A significant range of threats and risks that businesses face can be addressed through holistic security solutions. Organizations are encouraged to use these solutions to ensure that adequate protection is in place to mitigate the severity of such attacks, which can disrupt regular operations.
Protection of sensitive data
With most modern websites enabling the capture, processing, storage and transmission of sensitive customer data, this trove of information is a lucrative target for cybercriminals. This means that the effort-to-reward ratio has never been more favorable for attackers.
Moreover, with a growing number of vulnerabilities – from SQL injection, cross-site scripting (CSSS), to remote code execution (RCE) and path traversal attacks – the quality of an organization’s web infrastructure has never been more critical to its operations.
One way a company can improve its web application security is by monitoring, filtering, and mitigating malicious traffic traveling to and from applications through a web application firewall (VAF). By placing the VAF in front of the web application, this essentially creates a “shield” between the web application and the Internet.
A VAF operates through a set of security rules, often called policies. Their usefulness comes in part from the speed and ease with which policy modification can be applied, allowing for a faster response to different attack vectors.
Apart from the antiquated VAF model where only one set of configurations is deployed at any given time, the sector has been a hotbed of innovation. For example, Edgio offers a unique dual firewall model for web applications that offers end users the flexibility they need for testing and analysis while ensuring no downtime.
Uninterrupted functioning of the website
Half of all internet traffic is made up of bots – from simple web crawlers to malicious content scrapers. The challenge for organizations is to distinguish good bots from bad bots. Bad bots are not only used to perform automated tasks such as identity theft, but malicious actors programmatically use them to visit websites and identify vulnerabilities in the code to carry out subsequent attacks. Bot scalability also compromises website speed leading to customer churn and conversion.
Furthermore, an unprotected website may be blacklisted by search engines. When this happens, a website can lose up to 95% of its organic traffic, which significantly affects revenue. In the digital economy, businesses cannot overlook the impact of malicious bot activity as it contributes to greater account compromise, higher infrastructure and support costs, customer churn, and degraded online services.
However, a company that adopts a holistic application security solution could gain insight into bot traffic on its websites and APIs. This will allow them to accurately determine in real-time whether a login request is from a fraudulent source, and if so, take the necessary corrective mitigation measures.
DDoS Mitigation
DDoS attacks have always been a common tool in the arsenal of cybercriminals. This perennial cyber threat is a crude but effective form of cyber attack where malicious actors flood a victim organization’s network or servers to take them offline and prevent legitimate users from gaining access. Exacerbated by the growing availability of “DDoS-for-hire” services that can cost as little as $500, it has become cheap and easy to launch attacks against any organization – in fact, various industry studies have confirmed a significant increase in the volume of attacks. , the intensity as well as the duration of the session compared to previous years.
Moreover, the increasing reliance on digital services means that any disruption to key digital services will have a far-reaching impact on all parties involved. On the end-user front, it can be a case of lost productivity due to limited access. Conversely, for the victim organization, the impact can range from remediation costs to brand reputation damage, with the effects continuing to be felt even months later.
A company that has adequately invested in its security and network capabilities will be able to prevent any impact on its business by immediately detecting and mitigating an attack. However, given the significant amount of investment required, a more viable alternative that businesses can explore is to outsource the required support. Enterprises can access advanced mitigation and protection resources on a fixed budget with quality service providers. This is defined by the size of their bandwidth capacity as well as globally distributed networks. At the same time, these systems are regularly upgraded and maintained, patching any vulnerabilities before malicious actors have access to them.
The key to holistic implementation lies in resource management
While signs point to organizations working to improve their security and adopt solutions to combat an increasingly hostile cyber environment, it is an uphill battle beset by a host of challenges. This ranges from a lack of trained professionals to integrate security solutions, limited financial ability to invest in or own the full suite of required solutions, and the resources to keep up with the latest innovations in the space.
Security threats will remain a major focus for organizations in 2023 as malicious actors take advantage of organizations’ hybrid work practices and geopolitical tensions. Enterprises will face increasing pressure to deliver a holistic application that can withstand all existing and future threats to customer data and corporate reputation.
In this context, the role of service providers is becoming more and more important on this path. The benefits don’t just extend to cost optimization and maintenance. It also focuses on further business innovation through new technologies and secure applications and processes that enable businesses to take advantage of new opportunities amid an increasingly troubled landscape.
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