Importance of Finding the Software Vulnerabilities before the Hackers

Importance of Finding the Software Vulnerabilities before the Hackers In today’s well connected IT world, we all are well versed with the damage caused due to the online security breaches. If the hackers gain access to the corporate systems, the organizations not only get their brand and reputation damaged but also have to splurge money in order to get the damage repaired.

The IT network is the route trekked by the hackers to access the critical systems. Because of this, the general tendency being followed is deploying the security methods to detect and prevent breaches at the network level. Organizations use firewalls as an effort to restrict the illicit access and analytics is being widely used to detect the unusual data usage activities which can be used as a basis to signal an attack.

But, many businesses don’t really understand that if the steps would have been taken much earlier in the process, it would be easy along with being cost effective to prevent security breaches. It starts with testing the security of the software code used to control the business applications and the embedded systems. Developing applications with a secured software code helps organizations prevent the invaders from accessing valuable data and save a lot of time, money and effort spent in justifying it.

Security Starts with Developers The addressing of the security issues in the software development phase itself save about 80-90% of the effort and costs spent as compared to when dealing with the issues in production. The developers should, hence, be ideally equipped and positioned to protect the businesses from the heavy costs involved, bad publicity and customer dissatisfaction caused by security breaches.

Various Industrial and Government Organizations have also come out with standards to mitigate the damage caused by the security breaches in order to achieve the secure software codes. Let’s take in sight the example of the CERT Secure Coding Initiative. It works in collaboration with the Software Developers and Organizations developing softwares to reduce the susceptibilities that result from coding errors that are developed in the software before deployment. STIGs (Security Technical Implementation Guides) contain the technical direction for locking down software and information systems that can be susceptible to malicious computer attacks.

These organizations work behind standards and are well versed with the risks involved when hackers look for attacks and avenues. For instance, if a retail giant’s website is hacked and the Credit Card details are exposed, it will hit the headlines worldwide, letters will have to be sent to the affected and they will also have to be compensated by the retailer. Eventually, the banks will have to replace the cards to avoid future risks. All this would lead to a loss of huge amounts of money.

If the attackers target industries like Oil, Gas and Automotive, then the concerns can be even more severe as it may lead to disastrous explosions, accidents and more. Thus, the role of Developers is of greatest importance so as to investigate the security breach during development and deployment of approaches to avoid them.

Prevention: The Best Medicine Keeping an organization’s software applications and embedded systems secure is like managing health of a person by preventing attacks from infections and other diseases. The best treatment method to avoid any security issue is prevention and it is best if it starts timely. Many a times, software developers are clueless on how to develop more secure softwares and what approaches to follow to achieve the same.

The best practice to follow to achieve the objective of developing secured codes is to educate and arm the software development organizations with the right set of tools to help preventing the attacks and threats. The usage of right tools will help the Developers to simplify the approach, shorten the duration and improve the process of detecting security threats in the software and mitigate them easily.

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