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Posted 13 July 2023
In today’s digital landscape, it’s easy for businesses to fall into the trap of thinking that because their applications were designed with the cloud in mind, they will always be secure, even in the face of an evolving cyber threat. Yet it’s the evolving nature of the ecosystem itself, as well as the threats, that mean businesses need to proactively prioritise the security of their modern applications. Because when technology is moving at such a rapid pace, a ‘modern’ application won’t remain modern for long. This is where refactoring can play a crucial role in enhancing business security.
Modern applications aren’t immune to security challenges. They can fail penetration testing. They can have poor security practices built in. And they can be vulnerable to new and emerging threats. When it comes to securing business applications, it can be helpful to think of it as an ongoing concern requiring ongoing investment. In order to maintain the integrity and confidentiality of sensitive data, businesses need to actively address vulnerabilities.
As with legacy applications, refactoring can help businesses stay ahead of the game, providing an opportunity to evaluate application security posture, identify potential weaknesses and implement more robust security measures to shore up resilience and provide better protection for the environment.
Penetration testing is a valuable security tool for businesses, helping them identify real vulnerabilities so they can make tangible improvements. A penetration test is a simulation of a real-world attack on an application and allows security teams to pinpoint weaknesses and vulnerabilities that could be exploited by genuine malicious third parties. By identifying vulnerabilities, pen testing provides a solid basis for remediation, giving IT teams a strategy for making security improvements during the application refactoring process.
Vulnerability scanning is another useful tool businesses can use during the application refactoring process to improve app security. This involves using automated tools to scan the application’s codebase, dependencies and configurations for known security flaws, helping IT teams to identify weakness and any outdated components that might expose the application to security risks. Again, refactoring gives businesses an opportunity to resolve these issues and ensure a more secure application environment.
A business’s IP catalogue is arguably one of its most valuable assets. As an inventory of intellectual property, it often includes sensitive and valuable information around products, services and processes, as well as business- and mission-critical assets like proprietary code, patents and trade secrets. Everything that a business values will be listed in the IP catalogue, so it’s an asset that needs the highest levels of protection in place.
Refactoring modern applications gives businesses an opportunity to evaluate the security status of their IP catalogue, and assess everything from access controls and encryption protocols to data protection mechanisms. Once any vulnerabilities or weaknesses have been identified, businesses are able to address these during the refactoring process, building better security safeguards into applications to reduce the risk of unauthorised access or theft of valuable IP.
Ensuring the security of customer-facing applications is crucial in maintaining the confidentiality, integrity and availability of sensitive information, as well as fostering a positive user experience and safeguarding the reputation of the business. This is another area where refactoring modern applications can help.
Over time, vulnerabilities can emerge in the codebase and underlying frameworks used in customer-facing platforms, and refactoring allows these to be identified and addressed. Refactoring also gives businesses an opportunity to improve authentication and authorisation protocols, implement stricter encryption processes to ensure data is secure throughout its lifecycle, enhance session management techniques to prevent hijacking, and update in-built security testing to account for the latest known threats.
By incorporating these security enhancements through refactoring, customer-facing platforms are given a stronger defence against potential threats, and businesses are better able to protect customer data and build trust with users.
As well as providing businesses with the opportunity to plug any security gaps that might already exist, the refactoring process allows businesses to make use of the latest upgrades and any new or emerging technologies and security practices. Refactoring involves an evaluation of the security status of the application’s underlying technologies and frameworks, so businesses can ensure the new version will be running the most recent security patches, bug fixes and enhancements.
Refactoring modern applications also allows for the integration of the latest advanced security features, such as zero-trust, MFA and hidden URLs, to bolster protection against cyber-attacks and improve security across the environment.
Refactoring modern applications is not only crucial for maintaining functionality and performance, but for ensuring applications have the best and latest security measures in place. At BCN, our security experts can support businesses to identify vulnerabilities in applications and refactor them to ensure they are protected and resilient in the face of an evolving cyber threat.
By shoring up your application security, BCN can help businesses instil confidence with their customers, protect valuable intellectual property and maintain a secure environment for everyone.
