Application Risk Scoring

In modern software applications, the challenge of maintaining a strong security posture stems from more than just the sophistication and number of cyber threats in the world today. Many of today's challenges come from the complexity of modern applications. Instead of predictable monolithic apps, modern apps are made up of tens or hundreds (or even thousands) of microservices and databases, creating a huge attack surface with an unmanageable number of dependencies. Adding to the complexity, distributed development teams are updating application code frequently, and many of these changes are pushed to production without full security reviews. Effectively prioritizing what to fix first is the greatest challenge for application security today.

With this backdrop, application risk scoring emerges as a crucial tool. Application risk scoring involves assessing vulnerabilities based on their likelihood, exploitability, and potential impact on the business. By assessing vulnerabilities in this light, security teams can properly prioritize their mitigation efforts, dedicating resources where it matters most.

In this post, we'll explore the key concepts behind application risk scoring. We’ll provide a clearer understanding of risk scoring, discuss the role of Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) scores (and other scoring standards), and talk about what it means to integrate business and data flow context into your risk assessment. Finally, we’ll look at the role of application security posture management (ASPM) in scoring and assessing application risks.