Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) is a strategic method designed to address the ever-growing challenge of managing vulnerabilities in software applications. Whereas traditional security approaches often focus on eliminating all vulnerabilities – which is a near-impossible task given the volume and complexity of modern applications – ASPM shifts the focus to prioritization, enabling security teams to analyze and address the vulnerabilities that pose the greatest risk to an organization.
With the right ASPM solutions in place, security teams are empowered to scale their efforts more effectively while ensuring that remediation efforts align with broader enterprise risk management strategies. This risk-based approach not only optimizes security resources but also improves communication between security teams and business stakeholders, allowing organizations to make informed decisions that protect critical applications without hindering development or progress.
Why ASPM?
ASPM can often be confused with static application security testing (SAST) and/or dynamic application security testing (DAST). SAST is specifically designed to help uncover vulnerabilities in custom code during the early stages of application development whereas DAST evaluates running applications in a test environment to detect security issues that might not be apparent in static code analysis, such as authentication flaws or runtime misconfigurations.
ASPM is a holistic approach to application security that encompasses SAST and DAST, as well as API security, software composition analysis (SCA), software bill of materials (SBOM), software supply chain security (SSCS), container security, infrastructure as code (IaC) security, AI-driven security, and more.
ASPM analyzes the data ingested from Application Security Testing (AST) tools such as SAST and DAST, providing a complete view into security posture. In return, ASPM helps AppSec teams effectively scale their efforts surrounding the evaluation and mitigation of risk associated with their own custom-built software.
The biggest benefit of ASPM is the ability to correlate data, cut through the noise, and continuously identify and respond to new application risks, which is only possible with unified AppSec platforms like Checkmarx One. Standalone solutions, what we like to call “vulnerability management 2.0,” aren’t able to provide comprehensive analyses just by nature of not being fully integrated with other point solutions.
The Business Case for ASPM: Why Enterprises Need It
ASPM provides multiple ways to secure the software development life cycle (SDLC) through a unified platform, allowing organizations to integrate security seamlessly into their development workflows while ensuring effective risk management. For enterprises operating in highly digital and regulated environments, application security is a top priority. Consider the following statistics:
- 77% of CISOs state that at least half of their organization’s revenue depends on applications they are responsible for securing.
- 86% of organizations have knowingly deployed vulnerable code into production to meet business deadlines.
- 78% of enterprises have experienced a breach due to vulnerabilities in internally developed applications.
- 96% of CISOs report that application security plays a role in their customers’ purchase decisions.
These figures highlight the critical role that ASPM plays in modern cybersecurity. Without a structured approach to managing vulnerabilities, organizations risk exposing sensitive data, violating regulatory compliance requirements, and suffering reputational damage.
For example, one of the most prevalent risks that ASPM helps mitigate is SQL injection, a critical security vulnerability where attackers manipulate database queries through user input fields. By leveraging ASPM solutions, security teams can proactively detect and remediate SQL injection vulnerabilities across applications, ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements such as GDPR and HIPAA while preventing unauthorized data access and breaches.
There is also the question of growth in an organization. As enterprise applications grow more complex, so do the security challenges. Organizations face several obstacles, including:
- Overwhelming data volume: Traditional security tools generate vast amounts of vulnerability alerts, many of which lack context or prioritization.
- Data correlation challenges: Security teams often struggle to consolidate insights from disparate tools, making it difficult to gain a unified view of application risks.
- Limited remediation resources: Organizations must allocate security resources efficiently, ensuring that high-impact vulnerabilities are addressed first.
- Business alignment issues: Security efforts must be communicated effectively to all stakeholders, justifying investment and aligning security initiatives with overall business objectives and risk management strategies.
ASPM addresses these challenges by offering automated data correlation, risk-based vulnerability prioritization, and continuous security monitoring across the entire application lifecycle in one platform. It pulls multiple elements of AppSec together into a unified platform, providing organization with the required features needed to identify and respond to risks better:
- Noise reduction: Filters and prioritizes vulnerability alerts, ensuring that security teams focus on the most critical threats.
- Automated correlation: Integrates findings from various security tools, reducing the manual effort required for analysis.
- Risk-based prioritization: Assesses vulnerabilities based on business impact, compliance risks, and exploitability.
- Improved communication: Translates security risks into business terms, facilitating better decision-making across departments.
- Future-proof security: Leverages AI and automation to protect against evolving threats, including those associated with AI-generated code and low-code/no-code applications.
Implementing ASPM: A Unified Approach with Checkmarx One
To fully realize the benefits of ASPM, enterprises require a unified, comprehensive, cloud-based solution that seamlessly integrates security across the SDLC. This allows businesses to quickly and easily identify and respond to risks. The required level of correlation and coordination requires more than just standalone vulnerability management tools or tidy dashboards that help you understand your posture but do little to actively identify and manage risk.
Checkmarx One delivers exactly that – a unified platform that consolidates all application security testing (AST) tools and components, including SAST, DAST, APIs and more.
Key capabilities of Checkmarx ASPM include:
- Code to Cloud Visibility: Automatically organize and view data across the entire application lifecycle, from development through runtime.
- Comprehensive Coverage: Monitor and correlate data across all your AppSec solutions, including Checkmarx and non-Checkmarx solutions.
- Orchestration of Checkmarx ASTs: Integrate Checkmarx solutions from across the SDLC and manage their operation according to your organizational policies.
- Correlation: Aggregate and correlate results from separate AppSec tools to reduce noise and better prioritize remediation efforts. This includes analysis of exploitable paths, attack paths, network exposure, and more.
- Cloud Insights: Pulls data from cloud environments that can be correlated with our data from development to prioritize remediation.
- Application Risk Management: Scores applications by risk and provides a single risk view of your entire application footprint, allowing you to focus remediation by application criticality or application risk.
- Bring Your Own Results: Integrate findings from 3rd party tools via APIs
- CNAPP Integrations: Integrate with world-class partners, including Sysdig and Wiz, to correlate data from runtime environments.
- Executive Dashboard: Track and measure AppSec KPIs in one dedicated location.
As application development accelerates, CISOs must equip their teams to keep pace without obstructing innovation. ASPM enables enterprises to achieve this balance by offering an intelligent, risk-focused approach to vulnerability management. By integrating security into development workflows, ASPM not only improves protection but also enhances collaboration between security teams, developers, and business leaders.
Organizations seeking to strengthen their application security posture should consider ASPM a critical component of their cybersecurity strategy. With Checkmarx ASPM, enterprises can confidently manage application risk, maintain compliance, and drive business success without compromising security.Explore Checkmarx One today and request a demo to see ASPM in action.