Dynatrace : Why RASP enhances your cloud application security strategy

Application security and managing software vulnerabilities are more important than ever as organizations use open-source software and cloud-based services. At Dynatrace Perform 2022, the Advancing DevOps and DevSecOps track explores how RASP can better secure applications in dynamic environments.

Key takeaways from this article on runtime application security protection for cloud application security include the following: Traditional security approaches can't adequately address exploitable vulnerabilities inside the firewall. A modern approach to application security can solve this problem by using runtime analysis to identify threats and address them-sometimes without human intervention. Known as RASP, or runtime application security protection, this modern approach to app security has become even more relevant as organizations discover vulnerabilities in the open-source code that underlies many applications and that fueled the 2021 Log4Shell vulnerability. At Dynatrace Perform 2022, the Advancing DevOps and DevSecOps track will highlight the importance of RASP for modern multicloud environments.

As organizations increasingly rely on cloud-based applications and open-source software to fuel business, securing these apps can seem like one step forward, two steps back.

Cloud-based apps have made organizations more agile and responsive in an ever-evolving business landscape.

With cloud-based apps, teams can collaborate on documents in real-time, salespeople can update records from a tablet on the go, and warehouse workers can scan for out-of-stock inventory from an iPhone. But ease, collaboration, and speed can increase vulnerability exposure as cloud-based applications face an onslaught of threats, from phishing and ransomware to dedicated denial-of-service attacks.

Moreover, traditional security approaches are often manual and human-centric. But complex cloud-native environments have surpassed human ability to track all the services and their interdependencies. Moreover, the continued presence of cyberthreats in these environments-according to data on security breaches, 7.3 million ransomware threats were detected in the first six months of 2021.

Why traditional application security approaches need RASP: (Read: Log4Shell)

Traditional security approaches focus on securing the perimeter but often fail to adequately evaluate threats within it. That leaves applications vulnerable to malicious attackers. And once attackers make their way into the network, they can easily extend and expand their presence to myriad targets, ultimately landing on sensitive data.

But many tools fail to identify application threats at the perimeter and thus exploits can wreak havoc once they have crossed the threshold of the network perimeter.

In early December, the emergence of the Log4Shell vulnerability demonstrated the weakness of traditional security approaches. Log4j, an open-source Java-based library, contained a flaw that left millions of applications and services vulnerable to cyberattacks.

Log4Shell has proven highly damaging to organizational IT, prompting millions of attempted cyberattacks since early December.

Traditional security postures that focus on the perimeter can't promptly identify threats to applications in production. Prompt action is critical, given that malicious threats such as ransomware take only seconds to begin encrypting files.

Why RASP is critical for cloud application security

At Perform 2022, whose theme is "Empowering the game changers," the Advancing DevOps and DevSecOps track explores why runtime application security protection (RASP) is critical for modern, distributed and dynamic cloud environments.

Multicloud architecture includes applications and infrastructure running in the cloud, at the edge of the network, and in software containers.

This approach makes for more efficient and consistent software development and microservices, but it also makes the network perimeter more porous. The Advancing DevOps and DevSecOps track captures how RASP, run-time vulnerability detection, and automatic and intelligent observability provide better insight into cloud application security, including:

• App information in context. Coined by Gartner in 2012, RASP uses contextual information generated by the app itself to detect and block threats.
• Automatic real-time threat protection. RASP technology can detect vulnerabilities and prevent real-time attacks. By enabling the application to continuously monitor its own behavior, RASP can protect an app from malicious activity - without requiring human intervention.
• Context-driven security analysis. When an application begins to run, RASP can protect it from malicious input or behavior by analyzing the app's behavior and the context of that behavior.
• Precise threat detection and remediation. With RASP, security teams can get contextual information even while the app runs to identify threats with precision, isolate malicious sources and take action to remediate threats and protect critical data.

Register for Perform 2022 today, and check out the Advancing DevOps and DevSecOps track.