Five reasons SecureData should manage your web application security

Five reasons SecureData should manage your web application security

Introduction: The business critical web From online sales to customer self-service portals, web applications are now crucial to doing business. Unfortunately, the lucrative data held by these applications also makes them a prime target for cyber-criminals, and a huge worry for those securing them. Today, 86% of websites have at least one serious vulnerability and web applications remain a popular attack vector, responsible for 54% of breaches in larger companies. The number of reported compromises is escalating daily - along with the potential impact of breaches on revenues, brand reputation and regulatory compliance. Today, organisations of all sizes understand the need to tighten application security and reduce a huge area of risk. F5 s Web Application Firewall (WAF) is a popular route to achieving this: delivering scalable, comprehensive policy-based controls to defend crucial applications and databases, as well as ensure regulatory compliance. SecureData s managed service approach takes the potential of WAFs a step further reducing implementation challenges while maximising the benefits. Read on as this guide walks you through five major advantages of our managed service approach to WAFs. WEB RISKS If cyber-criminals breach your web defences they have plenty of options and the damage is not always easy to spot. They might: Deface your website Steal sensitive information Contact your customer base

STEP ONE Overcome complexity with the right expertise Application security is essential, but it s also complicated to get right. To correctly deploy, configure and control WAF policies, organisations must have a deep understanding of software security. This is a specialised skillset most businesses won t have in-house; it s far outside the core role of web developers, designers or even IT Managers. Complexity only increases when we consider that every change to a website can potentially create new vulnerabilities. Without continuous expert management to keep pace with these changes, a WAF is less effective at countering threats and may even interfere with legitimate traffic or break business critical web functionality. For instance, if your business is built around an online store, losing the ability to process credit card transactions will pose a serious problem. Without access to the right skills, organisations can find themselves hamstrung by this complexity - unable to use their WAF to its full potential, or worse, fearful to use it at all due to the business headaches it generates. This is a huge waste, akin to investing in a state-of-theart burglar alarm and then not even switching it on. SecureData s managed approach to WAF ensures your organisation has access to the right expertise to deploy and maintain seamless application security from day one. Our team includes former F5 employees, and the company itself is an award-wining F5 Gold Partner. Meanwhile, our service delivers not just the knowledge of one person, but 130 people across the organisation - putting a huge range of skills and experience at your disposal, all delivered through a single contact point, 24x7. 4 SecureData

STEP TWO Reduce costs A WAF demands continuous management, but locating the in-house expertise to oversee it can be an expensive proposition. A new hire with the necessary skills would demand a salary in the region of 70,000, with additional training costs on top. Retraining existing staff to manage your WAF also takes considerable time, expense and effort - and taking personnel away from their existing roles can have bottom line implications as well. For instance, an IT Manager would spend less time on their core role of optimising IT to make your organisation more efficient and profitable. Our service enables organisations to cost-effectively access essential WAF expertise, without making a fulltime hire. The service can also ramp up or down as needed, empowering your organisation with flexible WAF management that can adapt to changing demands. And, of course, with an expertly managed WAF your organisation is also far less exposed to the financial risks of web breaches be that the cost of repairing damage, loss of business or regulatory penalties. THE COSTS Perhaps the biggest bottom line benefits of well managed WAF are the costs it helps you avoid: 36% of UK businesses estimate the cost of web breaches at 25,000-4 million

STEP THREE Align web development with security Online agility is now essential to business competitiveness; your business needs to be able to roll out new content and capabilities quickly and seamlessly. But with web changes now so frequent, it s becoming harder for organisations to formulate a strategy to understand, plan and deploy effective security solutions to keep their data safe and applications available. To remain secure at all times, web design and security must be carefully aligned. Web developers are rightly preoccupied by the look, feel and functionality of the applications they re building, but the underlying security considerations don t typically concern them. For this reason, your development team must be able to closely liaise with the security specialists managing your WAF. SecureData can work in harmony with your web developers and designers to ensure that new or updated applications are aligned with WAF policies during the testing phase. As applications undergo testing in a controlled environment, vulnerabilities can be safely identified and WAF policies updated to protect the new software. This ensures seamless security from the moment a web application goes live, while also guaranteeing that it functions correctly in conjunction with WAF from day one. All this allows your web developers to focus on what they do best form and function - while you remain confident that web assets are 100% secure. 6 SecureData

STEP FOUR See the big picture of your web security Instead of being concerned about what could happen online, your business should focus on what is happening. After all, if you re not aware of existing vulnerabilities or that your applications are already under attack, how can you protect your organisation effectively? When implemented correctly, your WAF provides visibility into threats across all your websites and applications, and gathers deep intelligence about the damage done. This allows you to better understand the big picture of your web security: how many attacks are happening, what form they take and what attackers are doing. By overseeing your WAF, SecureData can make the most of this granular detail about threats to improve your protection. For instance, correlating disparate attacks into related incidents, aligning application usernames with violations to identify attackers, or blocking threats based on geo-location information. Additionally, SecureData can provide a unique, comprehensive application security assessment to proactively identify and remediate vulnerabilities in your web front-end. Our application security specialists use advanced methods that combine automated scanning tools, customised proprietary scripts and manual techniques to test for a huge range of threats and exploits. We can identify risks, prioritise your vulnerabilities and recommend actions based on industry best practices. A debrief process that includes detailed reports and face-to-face briefings also guarantees that the security challenges are understood across your business from the server cupboard to the boardroom. This process of searching for weaknesses in your websites and applications, as well as what information could be compromised by hackers, is essential to meeting security best practices. It lets us ensure that your WAF is blocking the right threats and protecting the right areas allowing us to create more sharply defined security policies based on what s really happening. INTERCEPTING THREATS Used correctly, F5 s WAF can counter a huge range of threats, including: Cross-site scripting (XSS) Information leakage Content spoofing Cross Site Request Forgery

STEP FIVE Guarantee peace of mind Protecting web applications is an around-the-clock job. Today s fast-paced environment means websites and applications change rapidly, and it takes 145 hours per month to effectively manage a WAF. The bottom line is: if your WAF isn t keeping pace with change, then it s not protecting you effectively. All this delivers peace-of-mind that your business critical web front-end is protected at all times. Indeed, when a WAF is deployed as a SecureData managed service, it is 100% effective at countering threats - maintaining the confidentiality, availability, and performance of the applications that are critical to your business. By opting for a managed service approach, your organisation can guarantee the bandwidth to manage a WAF continuously, without concerns over resource shortfalls due to sickness or holidays. We ensure your WAF is continuously monitored and updated in response to emerging threats, while providing expert advice and support 24x7. Conclusion: Make the most of your WAF Whether you re considering a WAF purchase, or you wish to use it more effectively, SecureData can help. Combining the powerful functionality of a WAF with a dedicated managed service makes the most of your investment. It allows you to reap all the benefits, and none of the drawbacks. We ensure flawless application security and performance, while reducing costs, time-consuming management, and the need to hire new expertise. To find out more about our Managed Web Application Firewall Service, visit: www.secdata.com 8 SecureData

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