Escalating Software Vulnerabilities: Remediation Timeframes Have Increased a Startling 47% over the Past Five Years, Straining Teams to Their Limit
In the rapidly evolving digital landscape, managing software security debt has become a critical challenge for organizations worldwide. According to recent reports, the average time it takes to fix a software security vulnerability has nearly tripled compared to 15 years ago, now averaging at 252 days.
Most of these critical security debts come via third-party code or the software supply chain, a trend that has been highlighted by research from Black Duck and Veracode. Tool sprawl is another concern, as it burns budgets for software developers and security experts, according to various reports.
The IDC report found that half of developers spend a significant amount of time on security-related tasks, often outside normal working hours, with half spending 19% of their weekly hours on such tasks. The prevalence of high-severity flaws has been cut in half over the last decade, but remediation times for software security flaws have grown by 47% in the last five years.
The gap between the top 25% and bottom 25% of organizations in managing security debt is significant. Leading organizations have flaws in fewer than 43% of their applications, while lagging companies have flaws in 86% or more of their applications. Half of organizations have "critical security debt", which are flaws left unpatched or without mitigation for longer than a year.
Factors Accounting for Differences in Managing Software Security Debt
1. **Security Maturity and Organizational Capability**: Leading organizations have more advanced security maturity levels, enabling them to handle vulnerabilities and security debt more proactively.
2. **Remediation Capacity and Speed**: Top-performing teams address more than 9% of security flaws monthly, compared to just 0.1% for laggards.
3. **Focus on Open-Source and Third-Party Components**: A significant part of security debt comes from open-source and third-party code.
4. **Automation, Metrics, and Process Discipline**: Organizations that adopt strong metrics, continuous monitoring, and automation tools to track and remediate security debt tend to perform better.
5. **Cultural and Organizational Priorities**: Organizational culture and priority given to software quality and security influence how aggressively teams manage technical and security debt.
Strategies Teams Can Use to Tackle Software Security Debt
1. Establish Transparent Tracking and Metrics 2. Accelerate Remediation Cycles 3. Comprehensive Open-Source Analysis 4. Implement Rigorous Code Quality Practices 5. Automate Security Testing and Vulnerability Management 6. Invest in Training and Skill Development 7. Continuous Improvement and Resilience Building
In conclusion, differences in managing software security debt largely stem from how mature and resourced an organization is, how well it integrates security into its processes, and its ability to address both internal and external code risks. Successful teams combine transparency, speed, comprehensive analysis, and cultural commitment to systematically reduce security debt and improve their security posture over time.
The public sector has been particularly challenged in managing security debt, with six-in-ten applications containing unpatched flaws for more than a year. Chris Wysopal, chief security evangelist at Veracode, stated that organizations can drive down debt but many need help to prioritize which vulnerabilities to tackle first.
- In the realm of financial services and wealth management, the significance of cybersecurity in business and personal-finance operations cannot be overstated, given the increasing threats to software security.
- The IDC report reveals an inconsistency in handling software security debt, with half of developers devoting a substantial amount of time to security-related tasks, while data-and-cloud-computing systems become increasingly essential in the wealth-management sector.
- Cybersecurity becomes a crucial concern in the field of technology and finance, as the gap between leading organizations in managing security debt and lagging companies widens, with top companies having flaws in fewer than 43% of their applications compared to more than 86% in laggards.
- To mitigate cybersecurity risks in the finance industry, strategies such as establishing transparent tracking and metrics, accelerating remediation cycles, comprehensive open-source analysis, implementing rigorous code quality practices, automating security testing and vulnerability management, investments in training, and continuous improvement can be employed.
