Security Audits and Penetration Testing have grown up in the shadow of financial audits, which typically happen once a year. But they aren’t alike and an annual cadence just doesn’t cut it for security.
Back in the old days of the Digital revolution, your company’s IT department owned and managed all of the software your company used. Companies treated security testing the same way they treated financial audits. Things didn’t change that often, so an annual cadence was pretty reasonable. If you factor in how expensive penetration testing consulting can be (upwards of $50,000 per analysis), it definitely made sense to restrict the frequency.
Companies and Organizations aren’t just subject to financial audits anymore. Today, there are also industry and regulatory compliance frameworks that require annual review and certification. There are real business consequences for committing to a standard and then not measuring up.
Check your Calendar: When Was Your Last Security Audit? When Is The Next One?
By the end of this month, the year will be halfway over. How many times have you evaluated your security posture year-to-date? How many more security evaluations will you complete before the end of the year? Before you answer either of these two questions, consider this:
- How much new functionality will you introduce?
- Will new staff be coming on board as Administrators?
- Will someone discover a new vulnerability in a software library you’ve embedded into your code?
- Will one of your Developers overlook a security vulnerability in the interest of shipping code?
If your company or organization is anything like the thousands of other companies that are embracing Digital Transformation, then it’s likely you realize that security and penetration testing needs to start happening at the same speed as the rest of your business. But you can’t afford to pay external firms to run expensive tests on that frequency and you can’t afford to slow down the way your company or organization is innovating.
If you are subject to compliance regimes like HIPAA or PCI/DSS, then obviously you’ll need to be recertified on a regular basis, but you can’t halt innovation and development to review all of your systems to make sure they are ready. You need to be compliant at all times.
Security at the Speed of your Business
The answer lies in integrating automated tools that can evaluate your code and environment for vulnerabilities. These tools can be set up to run on a regular cadence or at specific points in your software development life cycle. As Administrators keep up with the demands of business, the tool can look at data permissions, system configurations and network security controls.
As Developers push code into dev or test environments, the system can automatically scan for coding issues and then validate the vulnerability to eliminate false-positives. Your embedded libraries can be cross-referenced against exploit databases to make sure that your entire software manifest isn’t vulnerable. With automation, frequency is an afterthought. You can set up the system to keep pace with your company or organization.
DigitSec’s S4 product does everything listed above. Our integrations with popular tools like GitHub, JIRA, Copado and a robust API, empower your team to have automated security testing baked into their regular CI/CD flow.
