Security Risk Equals Business Risk

April 25, 2022

Every company today is a software company and as such we’re all facing security risk and same cybersecurity challenges. With 9 of 10 breaches occurring due to a software vulnerability, incidents like Solarwinds and Log4j have demonstrated that implementing basic cybersecurity measures isn’t enough anymore. No matter how large or small your organization is, cybersecurity isn’t a “nice to have,” it’s a requirement to protect your organization from the risks of today and the future. 

With the variety and number of attacks increasing every day, it can seem an insurmountable task to build defenses that account for every potential risk. What’s more, different groups are measured and held accountable differently. For development, it means getting projects delivered on time and within budget. Security teams are measured by maintaining an acceptable level of business risk. Wherever your organization’s business priorities lie, we can’t boil the ocean. To align security and business goals, we require an approach to cybersecurity that adapts to constantly changing goals that  scales alongside your company’s business needs. With a focus on integration, collaboration, and prioritization, continuous security fills this need. 

Integration

Regardless of output or industry, almost every organization has shared goals – such as better customer experience, higher margins, faster product cycles, and attracting quality talent. Embracing technology with these goals in mind helps companies become faster and more successful, but can also expand the potential attack surface. And the impacts of a cybersecurity incident go beyond the cost of remediation – just look at last year’s headlines around Colonial Pipeline or JBS, which demonstrated how a cyberattack can impact revenue as well as brand equity. The ransom paid in these cases was minor in comparison to other repercussions. 

Wabbi recently conducted a survey with IDG ​to gauge the priority placed on integrating security throughout the software development lifecycle. Findings showed that not integrating security into the SDLC has resulted in project delays (72%), financial loss (63%) and/or compromised brand reputation (57%). To be sustainable, cybersecurity needs to be embedded into all facets of the DevOps process—from production to testing to deployment. As cybersecurity risks evolve, our approach must also evolve. Our research shows that just 12% of organizations have adopted a continuous security strategy; but others express interest in adopting – 22% are piloting, 46% have plans to adopt in the next 12 months, and 21% are planning to adopt more than 12 months from now. Regardless of how mature your DevOps practices might be, Continuous Security must be front of mind.

When teams fail to apply a continuous security to their processes, starting at feature definition, they ultimately run out of bandwidth and risk missing project delivery expectations. Security is no longer a siloed responsibility, and the products that serve security purposes shouldn’t be separate either. Integration of the right security tools is crucial to allow organizations to deliver applications as expected with appropriate security requirements being met. 

Collaboration

According to Gartner, by 2022, 90% of software development projects are projected to leverage DevSecOps practices—a 50% increase from 2019. To do this effectively, organizations must cultivate a partnership between engineering, operations and security teams to build security into all DevOps processes. Much of this collaboration can and should be automated allowing organizations to maximize the productivity of all resources. 

Our survey found that 88% of organizations find it highly challenging to gain access to accurate and relevant information regarding application security and compliance. It’s most difficult for development teams to gain access to prioritization of known security vulnerabilities (66%), assurance that code meets the necessary requirements (61%), and information about specific security policies that impact a given project (60%).

The final mile is making this necessary partnership as frictionless as possible to avoid negative impact to the overall business. If development doesn’t deliver projects, the top and bottom line will be. For cybersecurity to truly be a team sport, all parts of the organization involved must derive value in the context of how they’re measured to join the team. With continuous security, organizations can align security risk with business risk to ensure any technology implementations are relevant to their business. 

Prioritization

Cybersecurity should be repeatable and scalable to align with your organization’s overall business risk and protect it from any potential future risk. There is no more important example than software development. A continuous security approach enables effective prioritization of where to start, as well as the identification of what is important versus what is best saved for later. It is about understanding all of the potential risks and making sense of what approach is most effective to protect your business and its customers. By understanding what is involved with securing your organization’s development pipelines, you can identify, prioritize, and automate the entire evolution of building, testing, and deploying the software that keeps your business running. 

Learn more about how Wabbi’s continuous security approach enables organizations to unlock the full business value of its technology and read the full IDG report here.

 

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