Customer-facing web and mobile applications present the highest security risk to businesses in Asia Pacific, reveals a survey released by Synopsys, Inc.
In addition, 48 percent of those surveyed highlighted the lack of skilled security personnel or training as one of the biggest challenges to implementing an application security program.
Geok Cheng Tan, managing director of Asia Pacific at the Synopsys Software Integrity Group commented, “It is not surprising that web and mobile applications represent such a high risk to businesses in Asia, as they often process highly sensitive information and cyberattacks targeting them are increasing in sophistication in the region. To effectively address cyber threats, software companies need to move beyond reactive measures by implementing software security initiatives that embrace the fundamentals of software integrity and proactively build security and quality into their software development lifecycle (SDLC).”
The report reveals that a total of 54 percent of the respondents viewed customer-facing web and mobile applications as the areas presenting the highest security risk to businesses, followed closely by embedded and IoT systems at 20 percent. Desktop applications and internal-facing web applications were represented at 16 percent and 10 percent respectively.
Aside from the technical challenges in securing customer-facing web applications, 38 percent of professionals identified protection of customer data and intellectual property (IP) as paramount, while 12 percent suggested regulatory compliance.
Sixty-six percent of the respondents have a strategy in place in the event of a security incident. 16 percent said they did not, while 18 percent suggested that they are unsure. This suggests that nearly one-fourth of the respondents (24 percent) remains unprepared in the face of a cyberattack.
Eighty-two percent of those surveyed have received some form of cyber security training, which underlines the importance of cyber security and the need to better understand the threat landscape.
