Top 5 Fundamentals of Cloud-based Application Security Testing

In this net-savvy world, millennials are changing the entertainment zones from television to device-based or mobile-based or device-based applications with technology interfaces. Preferences are varying, which is impacting the overall cycle of application development. There is no scope for any hiccups or downtime in customer experience. For example, how long would an individual prefer to stick to an application if it doesn’t offer the expected results and keeps getting hung? Similarly, application security testing (AST) is a rising concern, as most of today’s applications carry highly sensitive personal or financial data. Therefore, enterprises are choosing cloud-based application security testing in order to validate the results and also ensure quality.

Why Application Security Testing is Important?

It is getting important to ensure that the application is protected & secured, and the data that it is holding shouldn’t get leaked. As per the Research Dive published report, the rise in number of cyber-security threats is one of the major factor, which is expected to support the global security testing market  to grow at a strong CAGR of 20.7% by 2027. The growing cyber-security threats are deteriorating the confidence of several enterprises to invest in the consumer market. In the digital space, security testing activities bring in procedures, hardware, and software to safeguard applications from any potential threats.

Over the recent years, application security testing is scooping a lot of significance. Traditionally, it was a feature that could get overlooked in the software design. However, today there is no scope that security testing can be missed. Today, security testing is vulnerable to cyber threats as applications are more accessible over networks. Thus, there is a need for a robust application security mechanism and strategy that makes the application more resilient by minimizing the possibility of attacks.

How to Stop Any Malware from Accessing, Manipulating or Stealing Any Sensitive Data?

In the current landscape, there is a possibility that all the active or running enterprise applications are being hosted on the cloud. However, this poses another set of challenges in enterprise applications for security testing; right from safeguarding accessibility of the application to discovering its scalability across numerous features. The cloud-based application security testing persuades a different perspective. On the cloud, the security testing explores the achievability of hosting for testing the cloud applications.

However, cloud-based testing is not a novel but a relatively fresh process to conduct application security testing. With cloud-based testing process, the applications can be tested by hosting the tools or solutions on the cloud. If enterprises move to cloud-based testing patterns, the security testing process can be made faster, scalable, and even cost-effective.

Similarly, the focus should be shifted from just safeguarding security of the applications to fast-tracking the testing activity. Cloud-based application security testing has been considered to solve a number of queries and subsequently make security testing hassle-free and much more flawless.

Key Fundamentals of Cloud-based Application Security Testing

There is no doubt that cloud-based testing has its own set of challenges such as constructing distributed computing capabilities, ensuring applications’ security, standardizing processes, and many other challenges associated with the accessibility of the cloud. Thus, any cloud-based testing activity must have a set of key fundamentals.

These fundamentals must be specifically considered while selecting & implementing a tool/solution for cloud-based security testing. These basics can help in further developing a strategy and ultimately make it much more outcome- or result-oriented.

1. Looking at Speed

One of the key objectives for any strategy change would be to bring speed and speed-up the testing process. Cloud-based AST must help in faster scanning of the software for any potential errors and minimize the turnaround time. Thus, the selected tool/solution should have the capabilities to run analogous scans even from the distributed locations.

This could be much more applicable in DevOps and Agile set-up, where teams are co-located. Doing this will bring acceleration to the testing activity and also proficiency in the security testing process, resulting in faster development.

2. Need for Scalability

The testing activity must bring scalability to the security testing process. Clearly, this implies that the solution implemented must be scalable and expand as organizations grow. On the other hand, if scalability becomes an issue, it can hamper the testing activity and generate issues in terms of accuracy, speed, and efficiency.

3. Ensuring Accessibility

The global teams are co-located in an Agile set-up and all the teams work round the clock to bring on the application. Thus, the tool/solution has to be available online at any point of time across the browser. The tool/solution must also provide an integrated dashboard, which offers features to collaborate seamlessly in the security testing process.

4. Bringing Cost-effectiveness

All the businesses across the globe need cost-efficiency in order to keep launching fresh proposals for the customers. Hence, this aspect of ensuring cost-effectiveness must go down to every level of application development. Any solution/tool applied for security testing must pull down the testing costs and bring higher RoI.

Parallel execution and rapid scanning of the tests will certainly help in bringing down the testing efforts as well as the costs.

5. Monitoring Quality Outcome and Minimizing Risks

It is the final achievement point for any team. The tool/solution must provide specific quality metrics for continuous monitoring. This can be translated into executing accurate scans, resolving issues, and contextual reporting, tracking the test cases and code and many more parameters.

The focus of application security testing is to eventually result in reducing risks and thereby building robust software. To achieve this, the parameters related to risks must be defined in order to ensure that nothing is overlooked. Even when the solution/tool is selected, it must be ensured that all the listed risk areas are enclosed in the security testing strategy. Hence, this can be a surefire way to keep a track of threats and ensure quality of the application.

Conclusion

Application security testing is a broad topic and there is a lot of scope to explore and experiment to eventually bring down the risks. Cloud-based tool or solution can prove to be successful and valid if the process is well-strategized. Rationally, it begins by defining the security testing parameters and consequently taking the next steps.

About the Author(s)

Princy A. J

Princy holds a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from the prestigious Tamil Nadu Dr. M.G.R. University at Chennai, India. After a successful academic record, she pursued her passion for writing. A thorough professional and enthusiastic writer, she enjoys writing on various categories and advancements in the global industries. She plays an instrumental role in writing about current updates, news, blogs, and trends.