How Enterprise Security Products Can Achieve Faster Time To Market

24 / 02 / 2022 Enterprise Security Products Faster Time To Market By Incrux

With the sudden and widespread increase in the number of security threats and attacks happening on enterprises worldwide, the enterprise security product market is burgeoning like never before. Experts estimate the network security market to hit $7.32 billion and the cloud security market to reach $68.5 billion by 2025.

Since every organization today is looking to implement the latest and most modern enterprise security solution to safeguard their business from evolving threats, the pressure on those that make these products is extremely high. Not only do they have to build products with up-to-date features; they also need to ensure they are able to bring these products to organizations as quickly as possible.

Storing the secrets in a secret management tool is one of the solutions. There are multiple secret management tools in market like Hashicorp Vault, AWS Secret Manager, Cloud KMS, Confidant etc. Communication to these tools will usually be through APIs. There will be keys to authenticate to the secret management tool like Vault. In the configuration files we have to save these keys. Using secret management tool, we can avoid storing the database credentials in plaintext in configuration files.

But given how complex enterprise security products are, how can they achieve faster time to market?

Enterprise security products are extremely complex to develop

Unlike consumer security products that require only a few security boxes to be ticked during the development phase, enterprise security products are extremely complex to develop and secure because they are susceptible to a wider range of threats and risks. These include broken authentication, security misconfigurations, SQL injections, cross-site scripting, improper platform usage, insecure authentication, code tampering, and more.

Since enterprise security products offer an array of new and evolving capabilities and integrate with numerous other systems, they need to be secured at every level: from database (data at rest & data in motion) and web server to network, browser, application, and even the user. If not done properly, they can lead to several security breaches that would eventually impact customer satisfaction and brand reputation while also causing humongous revenue losses.

Although carrying out countless levels of testing might seem to delay time-to-market, a poor approach to testing can prove to be extremely perilous. By restricting security checks to a handful, you might be able to deliver your products to customers quickly, but they won’t meet the required levels of quality or security, and won’t solve the actual purpose of these products – to safeguard organizations from emerging threats and risks.

Achieving faster time-to-market requires a robust approach to development

If enterprise security products do not deliver on their promises, winning back the trust and confidence of customers and building back the reputation can be a long and arduous journey, which is why it is important to develop these products with a security-first mindset.

Embracing a comprehensive security testing framework, ensuring verification and assurance across all layers of the application including infrastructure, simulating real-world threat scenarios through penetration testing, taking a proactive approach to finding vulnerabilities, and taking necessary corrective measures are different ways in which enterprise security products can keep up with expectations while enabling the companies that build these products to achieve faster time-to-market.

That said, here are 5 tips to keep in mind:

  1. Stay abreast with the latest threats: You can only integrate the right security features if you know what threats your enterprise security product is supposed to circumvent. Staying abreast with the latest malware and ransomware threats and understanding how threat actors are evolving their attack strategies is extremely critical to be able to build the right capabilities and bring the product into the market in a quick and efficient manner. For this, partnering with experts who have worked in the industry and have security domain-specific knowledge and a good understanding of technical jargon and concepts is important.
  2. Engage in multiple levels of security testing: Enterprise security products are used by several users, at several positions, and using several devices. To ensure they perform consistently, it is essential to engage in multiple levels of security testing, including penetration across cloud, web, mobile, and system applications. Carrying out vulnerability mapping of User, Web application, Browser, Network, and the backend and constantly analyzing data security at rest, in use, and transit can aid in the proper functioning of the system as well as in quicker time-to-market.
  3. Automate workflows: Another way to bring enterprise security products quickly to the market is by embracing automation across the development lifecycle. Instead of wasting time on mundane and repetitive tasks, developers and testers can drive higher levels of efficiency via automation while ensuring quality and consistency as well as savings in time and efficiency. By reducing the number of tasks and freeing up time to work on items that add genuine value to the business, you can accelerate your time-to-market and quickly address business requirements.
  4. Embrace system-level engineering: Developing efficient enterprise security products requires a thorough understanding of underlying operating systems, as well as of techniques to detect and defend against modern malware problems and advanced threats. While developing such solutions, developers need to think from the perspective of attackers, to better understand the sophisticated Techniques, Tactics, and Procedures (TTPs) they use to invade modern systems. Embracing system-level engineering is a great way to analyze and reverse engineer attacker behavior, and come up with detection methods and solutions to protect users.
  5. Ensure the right driver development: Enterprise security products also demand developers with the ability to take up complex Windows Kernel and Device Driver projects. Since even a small mistake in the architecture or a bug in the code in a kernel-level module can bring the whole system down, having experts on board with experience in developing drivers for large organizations can ensure they are developed right – the first time. Experts who have worked on files system filters, file system mini-filters, network drivers, and Kernel hooking drivers can exude tremendous skill in testing and stabilizing these drivers and delivering the products quickly.

Enterprise security has become a priority for businesses across the world. Ensuring the right level of enterprise security requires quick adoption of the right products, which, given the current pace of global disruption, is extremely difficult. Striking the right balance between product quality and time-to-market requires development organizations to stay abreast with the latest trends, engage in multiple levels of security testing, automate workflows, embrace system-level engineering and ensure the right driver development.

Follow these tips and accelerate your enterprise security development today! Contact us to know more!