There are many forms of protection and multiple tools available to ensure the security of your application portfolio. However, it is not feasible to implement everything for obvious reasons of budget and resources.
That is why it is important to initiate a process of proactive management of your application portfolio in order to better inform the measures and tools to be put in place for your company.
To this end, you need to have an overview of your application chain (mapping), to identify the risks (audits) and to prioritise them to release the budgets required for the implementation of this approach.
It is also worth remembering the importance of application partners, suppliers and developers in this process. These actors can play a key role, particularly through partnerships where the commitments, relationships and responsibilities between the parties are clear and properly defined. See the module Contracts and audit (SLAs).
It should also be remembered that any approach to securing the application chain relies on good cybersecurity hygiene. This includes, in particular, the following best practices:
- Conduct code or Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) audits
- Restrict direct access to data and use strong authentication
- Actively manage passwords
- Raise your teams’ awareness regularly and systematically
- Encrypt and back up databases
- Update systems regularly and systematically
- Perform regular patching
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Definition: An SBOM (Software Bill of Materials) is an inventory of the components and elements making up software. It identifies the software components used in a company
