5 Essential Security and Network Infrastructure Trends for 2015

Web Application audit services

 

With the rapid development of networking and security industries, here are some views on the most important technologies to look out for in 2015:

1. Security breaches are difficult to stop

Data leakage and security breaches will continue to cause trouble for most companies. Studies over the last 10-15 years have shown that new threats are answered quickly by a new defense system.  Once the threat evolves, a brand-new defense system is required. This has given rise to a variety of security appliances, management systems and software agents that in a number of cases are not able to talk to each other. The security architectures of the next generation will implement discrete security systems, which can work with threat life elements and crack the infection chain in various places.

2. Cloud technologies finally taking root

 All kinds of cloud are making their way inroad and are being an essential part of the enterprise infrastructure. Most organizations trust the security provider's capabilities and therefore, Software as a Service (SaaS) has reached a high point. For flexibility, infrastructure as a service (IaaS) still focuses on web application security services. Hybrid clouds, personal clouds and cloud bursting will cause more sharing of distributed management, services and security.

3. Variety in mobile apps and management

The market of mobile devices (handsets and tablets), unlike the PC market, are not dominated by Microsoft. There are at least two to three platforms across the world. This diversity means that management systems need to be more open and flexible. Enhanced JavaScript performance pushes the browser and HTML5, as the mainstream enterprise application development environment. This guides towards richer applications with more focus on usability, rather than cumbersome large applications.

4. Software defined modular infrastructure becomes the rule

The control layer is being separated and centralized for various parts of the infrastructure. Initial focus is mainly on virtualization of the data center, Software Defined Storage (SDS), Software Defined Networking (SDN) and standalone switch fabrics. The result is that API's are being used up at a much higher rate. In today's world, where the infrastructure is segmented and dissected, API's are important, but they also pose to be a potential security hole in the network element.

5. Wired access is being continuously replaced by wireless

Wireless access is a norm across most organizations. Enterprises in new building are mostly not wired. Wireless systems are now becoming the main network access mechanism, which means that an authentic system with tight integration is most essential. Wireless technology continues to get better with ac Wave 1 now coming out and Wave 2 being launched in 2015.

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Data Not Handled Safely by Forty Percent of Mobile Apps

According to a research, approximately 40% of mobile applications that are used are not safe for handling data. The research was conducted across a set of enterprises to find out the state of mobile application security audit. According to the end result, more than 40% of mobile vulnerabilities detected were related to unsafe and improper handling of data.

The sectors conducting business mainly through mobile and web applications are BFSI and Ecommerce. The companies are already taking proactive measures and all the necessary precautions that are required to secure the data transactions taking place through their stores. The future is going to see a lot of other services that are going to be enabled through mobile. This means that businesses need to have a good focus on mobile app security.

Tests were conducted on top 10 mobile app vulnerabilities listed by OWASP and the conclusion that came out was that 17% of mobile apps experienced accidental leakage of data. There was data storage insecurity in 23% cases and weak server side controls was the issue with 10% cases. Approximately 100 mobile applications were tested by many Indian companies and as much as 21,000 mobile app vulnerabilities were found. This confirms that lot of enterprise mobile apps can be affected by data leaks.

Various security breaches have taken place with Android apps. There have been a number of hacking incidents, that have been reported on Android apps. Critical mobile apps on Apple iOS systems are more susceptible to security threats than Android apps. Both Android and iOS operating systems have the same amount of high level vulnerabilities. But, for the critical vulnerabilities, it was found that Apple iOS was 67% more vulnerable as compared to Android apps which were 33% more susceptible.

Increase in the use of Smartphones is considered to be one of the reasons for rise in vulnerability risks. All mobile apps used in Smartphones have access to the information in user's Smartphone, which makes it all the more risky. Businesses have to find out ways in which they can protect their critical information, which makes mobile and web application security really important.   

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How Are Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing Different

There are varied point of views on what constitutes a Penetration Test versus a Vulnerability Assessment. The main difference, however, seems to be that a Penetration Test involves diagnosing as many vulnerabilities as possible. While some feel that Penetration Tests comprises of identifying all the vulnerabilities, if possible, some others feel that Penetration Tests are purpose oriented and are indifferent towards what other vulnerabilities might exist.

I believe in the second theory and what follows are some points, which makes my belief stronger.

 Language Is Important

There are two reasons why we feel that language is important. We have a security test for collecting the full list of vulnerabilities and it is called Vulnerability Assessment. If there isn't a communicable and clear distinction between this test and penetration testing then two separate terms would not have existed. There is a distinction between the two types of tests and it is a crucial one.

Explained Definitions

Vulnerability Assessments are formed to produce a planned list of vulnerabilities and are meant for clients who understand that their IT security is not fool-proof and they need to work on it. The customer knows that they have issues and they just need help in identifying them.

The more problems identified the better, so a white box approach should be adopted whenever possible. The output of this assessment is, more importantly, a planned list of explored vulnerabilities.

Web application penetration testing services are devised to accomplish a certain attacker simulated goal and should be done by enterprises who have already achieved their desired security level. A typical objective is to access crucial information in a customer database in the internal network, or to correct a record in an HR system.

Exploitation through Penetration Tests

Another mistake while discussing penetration tests vs. vulnerability assessments is to center around the point of exploitation. The basic description is:

“Finding vulnerabilities is a vulnerability assessment, and exploiting them is a penetration test.”

But this is not correct.

Exploitation can be thought of as a sliding bar between nothing and a lot, which can be taken advantage of in both penetration tests as well as vulnerability assessment. Although the more serious penetration tests lean more towards showing rather than telling (which lead to exploitation), it's also a situation where you can show that even without full exploitation a vulnerability is real.

To Conclude

Vulnerability Assessment: It is usually requested by customers who are aware that they have issues and need help in getting started. The goal is to accomplish a planned list of vulnerabilities in an environment, so that the solution can be found.

Penetration Tests: Requested by customers who believe that their defenses are strong and want to test that theory. The goal is to find out whether a security posture can stand an intrusion by an advanced attacker.

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Growth Rate of Security Testing Market to Change from CAGR of 14.9% to $4.96 Billion by 2019

Security testing is a set of activities done to locate and isolate defects in the security mechanisms of an application or a software, to ensure functionality and data protection as planned.

The method discloses hidden vulnerabilities in a software, which can be easily taken advantage of, by a virus or a hacker. Security testing is now considered very important for organizations over all industry verticals. The demand for security testing is also being motivated by the growth of web and mobile applications.

With the development of new software and applications, there has been a boost in the security testing market, as it is an important part of systems development life cycle. The security testing market is described mainly as a service, but it also consists of devices provided by vendors such as NT Objectives, Veracode and WhiteHat Security.

Being a service primarily, the security testing outsourcing model has been implemented to be used by small and medium-sized enterprises. Security testing can further be sub-divided into two markets - Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) and Static Application Security Testing (SAST). DAST involves testing application security during the state of an operation and SAST involves scanning the binary code or source of an application for vulnerabilities. Both these methods are widely used in security testing.

Important vendors in the security testing market are Applause, Accenture, Cisco, Cenzic, IBM, HP, NT Objectives, McAfee, WhiteHat Security and Veracode. A research on the security testing market gives a detailed analysis of the main players in the services and tools ecosystem, with their recent developments, opportunities, key issues, future growth potentials and global adoption trends.

The major focus of the report is on the tools and types of services provided in security testing. The security testing market has been divided into Web application security testing services , network security testing services, application security testing types, , security testing services market by deployment models, security testing tools, regions and industry verticals.

The report shows the key factors that are promoting growth in the market along with new opportunities for growth. As per the report, North America is the biggest market for security testing services. This market is supposed to grow from $2.47 billion in 2014 to $4.96 billion by 2019. The growth is estimated to be at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 14.9% from 2014 to 2019.

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