Traditional AppSec tools can’t provide the code-to-cloud visibility and manageability today’s AppSec teams need to keep up with a radically transformed SDLC. Enter Application Security Posture Management (ASPM)…
Here’s what you need to know, and seven critical things to look for in a solution.
The average security team now monitors 129 applications and up to 76 technologies. Add coverage and visibility gaps, excessive alerts, and a laundry list of “to dos,” and something has to give. Fortunately, it has…
For AppSec practitioners, Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) is an emerging approach that unifies the separate AST, SCA, and software supply chain capabilities. This unification provides more context and gives AppSec teams the ability to prioritize, fix, and track issues throughout the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC).
So far, great concept. But many ASPM tools can’t keep pace with application lifecycles, address the complexity of application environments, or integrate seamlessly with DevOps practices.
What, then, should you be looking for in an ASPM platform?
Let’s start with the base layer.
Introducing AppSec Data Fabric
An AppSec Data Fabric is (or should be) the unifying layer for ASPM. Put simply, it’s an architectural model that automatically aggregates disparate sources of data, normalizes it, and then allows for correlation and deep analysis. This consolidated approach ensures that AppSec and DevOps teams have a single source of verified truth about the presence and security posture of all software in their environments. By taking data from multiple sources, cross-checking it, and enriching it with context, security and development teams get reliable and actionable data that allows them to make decisions about vulnerability management and prioritize issues that impede velocity.
A data fabric is more than mere aggregation or collection (which is a method used by many categories of tools, not just AppSec). Why? Because with a data fabric, data isn’t simply being moved from one place to another, often creating duplicates that then have to be triaged. What’s more, unlike aggregation, a data fabric automatically includes contextual and dependency analyses, which make it easier for teams to understand complex relationships between the data.
What’s more, a data fabric approach supplies real-time data monitoring (versus batch processing) and intelligent data management that offer automated pattern and trend analysis — both of which are critical in managing and remediating software vulnerabilities.
ASPM platforms built on a data fabric approach bring flexibility and depth to AppSec risk management, enabling native scanning capabilities to be augmented by third-party integrations without generating additional alerts. It’s the unifying force that ensures defenders can maximize the return on these seven critical components, driving faster, better, more informed risk decisions.
The Magnificent Seven: Components to look for in an ASPM platform
With a data fabric as the base layer, ASPM platforms should give defenders the unified tools they need to secure their software supply chain and eliminate manual AppSec. The key benefits and capabilities for any effective ASPM platform include:
- Enhanced visibility: Eliminating blind spots
Managing security postures across hybrid environments is tricky. Look for tools that can shed light on diverse, complex software supply chains — including third-party components and dependencies, which are often the weak links in the supply chain.
ASPM platforms should provide defenders with the visibility and deep insights they need to make informed decisions and take quick action. However, some commercial tools string together as many third-party tools as they can, sometimes introducing irrelevant and/or inaccurate data that muddies the data pool — in other words, “garbage in, garbage out.”
What to look for: The most effective ASPM platforms provide comprehensive visibility by combining relevant, normalized, deduplicated, and correlated data that has been enriched and automatically analyzed for applicability. These platforms surface vulnerabilities and misconfigurations and allow operators to manage issues, dependencies, and compliance violations across the SDLC, encompassing code, tooling, processes, and data from operational environments such as cloud platforms, containers, and physical infrastructure.
Bottom line: AppSec is a continuous process; an ASPM platform should integrate source control, CI/CD pipelines, registries, and cloud infrastructures through APIs. This architecture allows the ASPM provider to collect and verify 3rd party data, correlate it, enrich it, and then provide operators with the centralized visibility that allows them to manage applications and build environments from app design through deployment. Many ASPM platforms provide good AppSec security data but lack the capability to adequately cover CI/CD issues, which leaves gaps and can frustrate DevOps teams.
- Cloud-to-code traceability: Getting a fix on container exposure
ASPM operates at the application layer, overseeing both on-premises and cloud-based environments. Look for tools that improve visibility and traceability within container environments and across hybrid cloud environments. This coverage will ensure thoroughness and reduce manual triage and response efforts. ASPM platforms should substantially shorten response times by providing advanced, automatic triage and prioritizations, including severity criteria for container exposure.
What to look for: Containerization and cloud-native development have made comprehensive traceability between cloud and application code table stakes for many organizations. Look for ASPM platforms that can link container vulnerabilities directly to your code, enabling faster remediation, and lightening the load on AppSec teams.
Bottom line: If an ASPM platform doesn’t substantially shorten resource times and link container security issues directly to code, keep looking.
- Strengthen software supply chain security: Bring in the BOM squad
Managing security in the accelerated development environment is tricky; the likelihood of vulnerabilities slipping through the cracks or being introduced through recycles or third-party code is high. If your AppSec team is wading through 100,000+ alerts, triage becomes overwhelming quickly. That’s where software bill of materials (SBOM) and software composition analysis (SCA) come in.
What to look for: To identify all vulnerabilities, AppSec teams need a dynamic list of everything a piece of software has gone through— from the first line of code to release. A simple inventory of components in production apps can’t cut it: Choose an ASPM solution that supports SBOM, SaaS BOM, and API BOM, and provides dynamic capability to track the entire software lifecycle.
Bottom line: The most effective ASPM platforms reflect the realities of SaaS, APIs, and cloud components in modern development environments. By integrating SBOM, SCA, SSCS, and SAST into ASPM, organizations get a coherent, context-specific baseline for security assessments. The ability to trace source code to all its sources — along with accompanying vulnerabilities — allows teams to move beyond simple identification and into holistic risk management.
- Enhance prioritization and provide richer context: Get critical insight into application risks
Many ASPM vendors provide data deduplication and aggregation. At this point in cybersecurity evolution, this should be table stakes for any API-connected data. ASPM platforms that bring an additional layer of enrichment and triage can give AppSec teams enhanced, critical insight into application risk.
What to look for: With software vulnerabilities, context is everything. Choose an ASPM platform that can answer these questions:
- Can an attacker reach a specified vulnerability?
- If it’s reachable, can an attacker exploit it, or will other factors prevent an exploit?
- What could an attacker achieve by exploiting this vulnerability?
- What is the business impacts of an exploit, data leak, or other compromise?
Bottom line: Choose an ASPM platform that offers enriched contextual data (including reachability, exploitability, and business impact analyses) to accurately prioritize vulnerabilities based on the risk they pose in your environment. With enriched ASPM, AppSec and development teams can evolve from simply identifying software with certain CVEs to understanding and flagging libraries that are badly maintained/ have poor hygiene/are out of date. This helps them learn which applications are affected by what vulnerabilities, follow dependencies and downstream impacts, uncover probable attack paths, and more. This comprehensive approach adds the contextual component missing from siloed, traditional AppSec and DevOps tools and processes.
- Rapid response and remediation workflows: Clear the bottlenecks
Many of today’s ASPM technologies fall short in a crucial area: detecting software vulnerabilities early in the development cycle. They can’t identify vulnerabilities or exploits quickly, and can’t assess code from initial design through runtime. In other words: They create friction, slow down release cycles, and add to the pressure while DevOps and AppSec teams negotiate over release deadlines and vulnerability remediation.
What to look for: Cutting mean-time-to-respond (MTTR) is crucial for minimizing risk. Choose an ASPM platform that streamlines this process through intuitive response and no-code workflow automation — which will reduce manual effort and facilitate speedy vulnerability identification and effective response that doesn’t slow down development.
Bottom line: No-code workflow automation makes it easy to build intuitive, customizable responses. ASPM platforms with built-in automation reduce resolution times, accelerate release cycles, and scale security efficiently across any environment.
- Seamlessly integrate with DevOps practices: Minimize friction
AppSec teams have to keep pace with the speed and agility of development cycles, centering software security without impacting the continuous delivery pipeline. Most ASPM tools integrate with developer processes and workflows, so engineers can follow secure development best practices within their working environments. Not all of them make it easy.
What to look for: Choose a platform that seamlessly incorporates automation and allows individual users to tailor their workflows to their needs, comfort levels, and job responsibilities. Some ASPM solutions provide no-code workflow automation with drag-and-drop interfaces to simplify custom workflow creation, automate ticketing, and enable granular policy enforcement. These capabilities not only make processes easier and faster, but also help improve communication about fixes, reducing friction in remediation and response processes. What’s not to like?
Bottom line: Look for a platform that automates remediation and frees up human resources by providing easy-to-build, customizable workflows that still offer the ability for hands-on oversight.
- Connect to commonly understood frameworks for AppSec: Join the dots
Understanding how attackers view and target the supply chain attack surface — through a common language to describe threats — helps AppSec, DevOps, and security teams align more effectively to mitigate risk at every stage of the SDLC, sometimes avoiding risk introduction in the first place.
The OSC&R framework gives defenders a common language and attackers’ view specific to the software supply chain. OSC&R takes software supply chain security to the next level and helps AppSec and AppDev teams understand the attacker mindset and most common attack tactics and targets. But not every end user gets it.
What to look for: Risk assessment extends beyond consideration of your defenses: true accuracy comes from understanding how attackers operate and where they are most likely to breach applications and systems. Choose an ASPM solution that integrates the OSC&R framework — it can help you to converge application detection and response (ADR) into the ASPM platform, enabling complete threat modeling that exposes the gaps in your defenses and the most vulnerable areas in your software supply chain. When you focus on these low-hanging fruits, you immediately craft an action plan that tackles the highest-risk areas first, without wasting your time on low-priority or low-impact vulnerabilites
Bottom line: Like the MITRE framework before it, OSC&R marks a significant transformation in how AppSec teams address software security challenges. Coupled with ASPM, it brings a new approach, incorporating the attacker point of view and typical attack stages into the ASPM.
Eliminate the chaos of managing siloed data from disparate sources
The OX Security Active ASPM platform unifies application security across the SDLC. At the base of it all: the OX AppSec Data Fabric is key to our platform, and the reason OX excels against other ASPM, AST, and AppSec tools. Unlike other ASPM tools that stitch technologies together through connectors, OX was purpose-built for comprehensive AppSec posture management, combining 10 native scanning solutions with source data from 3rd-party integrations.
The OX Platform intertwines deep insights from SCA, AST, Secrets, IaC, CI/CD, SBOM, cloud, and posture to reduce AppSec alert noise by 90%, provide detailed insights about each application and its vulnerabilities, and offers step-by-step recommendations and auto-remediation that lower AppSec risk.
The “secret” to OX’s efficacy is reliable, prioritized, and contextualized evidence-based data that incorporates reachability, exploitability, and business impact — specifically for your business.
Learn more about how OX is going beyond traditional ASPM technologies and addressing the problems that are most critical for AppSec and DevOps teams: Book a demo
