Data Security in The Time of Applications

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With surging demand for applications, IT departments are facing increased pressure to deploy them more rapidly, leading to increasing complexity of their infrastructures, and more worryingly, the number of new attack vectors for malicious actors. The migration of applications to the cloud and the decentralization of IT infrastructures to improve ready availability is causing a decrease in visibility, context, and control for organizations, and is increasing the surface area for cybercriminals to mount attacks.

Having embraced technology to improve every aspect of life, the world’s rapid acceleration has forced businesses to rethink the way they do business – the shift is especially evident now, as digital strategies have evolved from being an IT afterthought to a boardroom discussion.

According to an article on etcio.com, applications have emerged as the critical tool for enterprises to deliver a variety of real-time, intuitive web-based services and engagements, from search to purchase. we can take an example in India: already in the midst of a digital revolution, it has received a considerably large impetus for businesses to deploy and use applications. This was on the back of a slew of policy changes announced since November 2016, the biggest of which was the demonetization of high-value currency notes in India. This announcement motivated companies to increase e-payment and app-based payment options, and has been the largest push towards the Government’s aim of a primarily digital economy.

With the mobile phone, the application ecosystem has further extended to encompass a variety of customer engagements for monetary transactions, leisure and entertainment.

Furthermore, the increased reliance on applications means more users are sharing personal data and information openly on these platforms. Protecting the network is no longer enough and it is time for the companies to evolve their security architectures and address the areas of greatest vulnerability: applications and users. For an engaging and secure experience, businesses will have to ensure that their application delivery service aligns with these three key considerations.

1) Availability – Especially for mission-critical workloads, businesses need to ensure that application delivery services can provide persistent application availability across disparate environments

2) Performance – With the increased urgency to deliver on-demand content to a variety of devices, application delivery needs to be optimized regardless of the deployment model in order to enhance end-user experience

3) Security – The increasing frequency with which organizations experience attacks and vulnerabilities drive security needs as one of the core application services necessary to ensure the survival of applications and business today.

According to a recent report, 72% of organizations have 11 or more application services deployed. This number is set to rise, as digital workplaces become commonplace. More employees now have the autonomy of choosing the applications and processes to work with, in order maintain a high intensity of corporate functionality anytime, anywhere, across any device.

Attacks continue to grow in sophistication and size; as such, organizations also have to evolve their strategies to address the security of their applications. With security budgets rising in the wake of public attacks, DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) mitigation solutions, WAFs (Web Application Firewall), and anti-fraud protection are among the top application services that organizations plan to deploy over the next 12 months.

As applications continue to dominate our daily lives, there is an increasing amount of data that is being shared and housed with these applications. Data privacy and security concerns have to be properly addressed before deployment to ensure the longevity and success of the applications. Enterprise IT teams have to ensure that user data is protected, and there are no breaches on these applications.