Security Assessments, Enhancements, and Evaluations of the Applications Assignment Help

This section should clearly articulate how the study will relate to the current literature.This is done by describing findings from the research literature that define the gap. Should be very clear what the research problem is and why it should be solved. Provide a general/board problem and a specific problem (200 Words)

Provide a discussion about your specific topic findings. Using the literature, you found, how do you solve your problem? How does it affect your general/board problem?

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Introduction 

Security assessments are a measurement of the posture of the security of a particular system or organization.  Information security of a program can be secured with the help of “security posture”.  Security assessments are the main risk-based as their focus is on the impact and vulnerability.  This assessment is performed due to the increased threat level in an organization. Information on data is no longer secure due to the activities of hackers and the invention of different malware and viruses. The data of the organization must go through different levels of security checking to make sure it is secure and below the threat level. Application security has become a major concern in today’s world.  Increased and advanced technology and devices are one of the growing reasons for this security threat. Many security models have been introduced for minimizing the threats and upgrading the security level on these applications.  Encrypted codes and firewalls make sure that the data is secured and the information is secured. These applications make sure that no malicious acts take place in the systems. Security assessments must be done regularly to check any breach in the system.  Technologies such as “cloud visibility” must be used for checking the current “security posture” of any organization. Security models introduced in the organization makes sure that data is protected. Confidential data of the organization can be secured with the installations of different secure applications and the use of security tools. In the research, a background of application security and assessment of security has been presented. A literature review has also been written presenting the views of different scholars. A discussing presenting the use of tools and applications software has also been presented. 

Background 

Security has become increasingly important in today’s world as applications can easily be accessed over networks and therefore are vulnerable to multiple threats. Different security measures are built for having "sound application security". This can minimize the level of threat and can stop any access of unauthorized code into the system.  Therefore there will be fewer threats of stealing, modifying or deleting any sensitive data from the system.   There are different countermeasures taken for minimizing or stopping the threats. “Application firewall” is the most basic tool.  This limits any “execution of files” with the help of designed programs. Countermeasures are also applicable for preventing hardware breach. The use of "routers” is control. Routers prevent the display of the IP address of the system to be visible on the Internet. 

It is noticed that there are millions of applications that are downloaded daily for making lives easier. Applications and technology are used by everyone in every place. The digital market is increasing and improving with the advancements that are being made. Advancements in communication devices, smartphones have led to massive use of applications (Momoh & El-Hawary, 2018). There are many advantages of these applications, but these also come with a huge leeway for hackers for reaching out to their targets. These applications are used for downloading sensitive and essential information present in computers or phones and are used for illegal purposes. 

Application security can be improved and enhanced by constantly defining different “enterprise assets” or identifying the use and role of each application.  A security profile can be created for these applications so that huge threats associated with each of them are identified and prioritized. “Threat modeling” is a technique that can be used for identifying the imminent threats associated with the applications and neutralizing them. A threat of any form can compromise the systems present. A “denial of service attack” or failure of any particular storage device or malicious attacks can be considered a threat to an application and must be neutralized immediately. Applications are present in the market with different Cloud-based systems and are connected to various networks.  This increases the threat level and vulnerability.  Sensitive data of organizations must be secured through proper networks along with the applications that were downloaded. Application technology is used nowadays for developing and preventing security features for protecting any threats such as modification and unauthorized access to data (Arshad et al. 2016). This is becoming common as hackers use high-level technology and devices for getting easy access to the systems. 

Security models can be introduced in the systems for assessing the security information in different software programs.  A security audit is conducted by organizations to check the level of security in their systems. Application security tools can be integrated into the application development for making the workflow simple and easy. These tools are effective in compliance audits as time and resources are saved as problems are identified before auditors catch them.   The massive growth in the segment of application security has led to a change in different enterprise apps. There are several tools developed for application security. These tools go through several testing phases to make sure that there are no security issues present. Static testing is the first phase where the codes are fixed during their development process for making sure that security issues are introduced.  The next step is the “dynamic testing”, that analyses and identifies the running code.  This phase is considered to be more useful as attacks can be stimulated in various production systems using “complex attack patterns”. Interactive testing is a combination of “static and dynamic testing” (Caputo et al. 2016). Mobile testing is used for identifying the attacking points of a hacker by leveraging the mobile IOS.

An organization has to go through different masters for securing their apps. Development tools in the market have to be secured first for having access to the market. The digital products and business needs have also to be identified by the company for designing their tools accordingly. Application security has many responsibilities. The members running the network have the responsibility to run different firewall applications and "network-centric tools". An organization requires security not only of the internal applications but also of the hardware. These securities must be guaranteed by the members. Application security training can be given to the members for highlighting different vulnerabilities and providing methods to fix the issue (Carla et al. 2016) Developers are trained for becoming a part of the rescue operation for understanding the challenges and adapting accordingly. 

Problem Statement 

The research is done to understand the application security and security assessment that is done for checking the threat level for each app. Application security can be used for managing apps and making them better for up-gradation and operation. The threat level, data breaches, and vulnerability of each of the systems can be easily identified with the help of application theory. Security assessment of each of the applications can help the company understand the level of a data breach or the amount of data that has been breached by hackers. A software development team that has a high level of knowledge regarding the application of security assessments must be hired by each of the companies to minimize the level of threat. However, there are many different areas that an IT expert needs to analyze before knowing the level of threat (Zissis & Lekkas, 2015).  With the advancement of technology and the increased use of app installation, the problem of hacking ad leaking of confidential information is rising. It is no more possible to keep data safe without the installation of security assessment tools and models. The threat level that a company faces is massive. Security assessments of proper areas can reduce the threat and vulnerability. 

Literature Review 

According to Chanajitt, Viriyasitavat & Choo, (2016), the article discusses different information and facts regarding the privacy and security analysis of health applications. The article sheds light on the exposure to mobile and the effect that mobile health has on the leakage of personal data.  The author has talked about different applications that are used nowadays that are not safe and are a cause of leakage of major confidential information. Most of these applications do not have a safe protocol and has no effective guidelines. Therefore it breaches the data protection regulations. There are different mobile applications that the author has chosen to perform both “static and dynamic testing”. The data and facts were collected using two different methodologies, “collective and assessment”. 20 applications were chosen by the author for analyzing the results. The study basing on the mobile application categories has its focus on the practical methods and thus ignored many other constraints affecting the usage. The study of the applications also assesses critical facts of health applications and their breach of data and information. Their application of health had a process that could save the information of the users and thus tampered the fats and led to a massive data breach.  The article also focuses on maintaining a system towards different applications that can help in keeping a track of various fitness records. The author has also used different health care applications and assessments such as popularity, quality, and content that helped in avoiding chaos and carefully lead to a successful review of the applications.  

According to Dar & Parvez, (2016), different active networks can execute nodes and provide flexible networking environments. The article also talks about the effective capability of programming.  The benefits and disadvantages of active networking are discussed in the paper. Network and its architecture are highly spent nowadays before any packets are sent. An active network can also be sometimes used as a "static strategy" for executing codes from different network nodes. The “passive network”, on the other hand, functions as a fixed process for following protocols in “application security”. Active technology uses different layers of protocol for its functioning. It uses different applications like network management, congestion control, caching and so on. Active networking uses a discrete approach that is an integrated approach that uses a "care control of program" at the time when data transfer occurs. This process of “active networking” leads to the arrival of many threats in the system. These threats are programmed and neutralized with the help of "network nodes". A proper and secure network is maintained for ensuring data availability and privacy. This method is used and discussed by the author as it can identify threats easily and change or modify them with the help of “malicious active packets”.  Apart from the advantage of finding its threats, it has its disadvantages. The process of “active networking" is time-consuming and requires a lot of time for its identification, detection for providing proper service for application security and so on. 

Application security in this system can easily change or modify the rate of data flow. This network can drop fewer packets or transfer them, thus acting as a useful service for every application. The process of data transfer can also be enhanced by the introduction of “network nodes” and making proper adjustments to them for the execution of the appropriate codes. Active networking provides fast and flexible network services with the help of the modification of its networks at any time. Active network capacity has different advantages such as congestion control, network management and so on. The threat of improper security and a data breach can be a limitation to this system (Zhang & Gupta, 2018).  The services can also be damaged by active packets. 

According to El Idrissi et al. (2019), mobile internet technology has rapidly developed. The author has discussed the rising of different malicious software for hurting the securities of mobile devices like android. The apps are designed for targeting mobile devices. They are created for disrupting the security of these mobiles for releasing the minimum amount of confidential information present in those devices. The malware created must be identified. Different studies and researches have been conducted for coming up with technologies to avoid such a threat. The smartphone comes with a lot of security concerns and has become a necessity for every individual. The author discusses the techniques for enhancing the security level of smartphones.  

The paper talks about the "Need-based security model" that is used for the optimization and utilization of the security of these smartphones.  This model is useful for every device as it terminates the flexibility of the programmers by increasing the permits and security of the phone.  The model also gives the user permission to provide access to any application by the use of its resources.  The author has also talked about the use of API for the enhancement of security in smartphones. The background of the smartphones is run and scanned by API.  The article also describes other techniques for increasing the security of the Smartphone. Security can be enhanced by locking the applications in the device for the prevention of attack by any malware.  

The security of mobile apps has reached a high level. Different mobile apps are scanned for tightening the security. The vulnerabilities present in the devices are analyzed in the article. Changes to the models and security techniques are discussed in the article that can help in coping with the imminent threats.  Having a high level of security of a Smartphone is a must, as this gadget is used by everyone. The paper suggests techniques and methods for mitigating the threats. However, the limitations of smaller resources and limited time stop the author from further analyzing the topic (Yao et al. 2016). 

According to Ganin, et al. 2017, the article discusses the security of mobile banking applications. The author has suggested that applications in android devices are upgrading regularly. The banking sector has used this technology and has developed several applications for banking terms. The developments have helped the users to easily access and perform several banking tasks without the trouble of standing in queues. The banking apps are analyzed by the author and have found that most of these apps do not use encryption of mobile data.  Therefore makes the data available for hackers. 

The author has gone through different studies and experiments for understanding the “security assessments” in mobile platforms. The experiment helped the author to find out the security modules that are used in the devices. The acquisition and analysis of “android forensic memory” have also been used by different procurements. Mobile phone certificates are also checked by the author for analyzing the packaging. The code of the device has also been analyzed for checking the security level of each of the apps.  The banking applications installed on the android devices are vulnerable because of the issues of the devices. The security of the device can be compromised if the devices are not encrypted properly or if the up-rotations of the devices are done by customers. Android phones are created with proper security procedures.  But the vulnerability of mobile phones increases because of the lack of updates of security patches.  This in turn also affects the security of mobile banking applications (Thomas & Galligher, 2018). 

It can be seen that many factors affect the security of banking applications. The security procedures of each of the applications have to be analyzed properly for having a clear idea of the level of threats. There are also different limitations in the course of the study. The author has not used different mobile platforms for conducting the experiments; therefore the results are limited to only android phones. 

According to He, Chan & Guizani (2015), the article discusses cloud computing that is used for understanding "client-server architectures”, operating systems and also browsers.  Cloud computing has different users and can reduce the complexity and requirements of the clients.  Cloud computing uses a "traditional protection mechanism” that resolves security challenges easily. Cloud computing gives access to different computational capabilities. This model contains “configurable computing resources”. The users using these services are always not accustomed to using the different parts and models of this system. Cloud architecture solutions are developed for coping with problems.

This model can identify the threats and challenges to data security as information is communicated easily to the participants. Cloud computing easily separates the data and uses the processes for any practical level. The appropriate level of security is used when any new resources are added or removed from the system. “Cryptic separation of data framework" is used in cloud computing for computation and maintaining data confidentiality (Jiahui et al. 2018). This model is also useful for securing the data as it supports application security and offers different deployment architecture.  Vulnerability and threats are identified and minimized.  The article identifies principles of the cloud computing environment that can control the threats in the future.  The model, however, can use better services and models for having faster identification and better services.  A combination of different tools and models can also be used for offering better protection and security to the applications (Thirumalai, Reddy & Kishore, 2017). 

Discussion 

Bugs in software are common. The application layer of this software is not strong and therefore is a target to different malware. Application security assessments are designed specifically to test different websites, web applications and also web-based services.  These assessments can be performed both automatically and manually. The assessments use different software protocols and tools that consist of safety procedures, security checks, “safe coding practices”, regular assessments and so on. Security assessments are designed for continuous monitoring website security and identifying application vulnerabilities (Kalaiprasath, Elankavi & Udayakumar, 2017). These security assessment tools are designed for regularly checking websites and also monitoring suspicious network anomalies.  These facilities can include a wide number of vulnerability scanners, “penetration testing tools” and so on. Businesses are always prone to hackers as they store confidential data and information of the employers and also of different other companies. The security assessment is considered as an integral part of every organization.  Every industry is dependent on internet and web-based services.  Therefore providing security from the internet-based hackers and malicious software is a necessity. Each of the security assessment tools must be efficient, user-friendly, cost-efficient and accurate (Sciarretta et al. 2017). 

Application security is not just a choice but also a necessity. This provides additional security layers for helping with the reduction of the risk. Application security, however, cannot eliminate the risks (Kang et al. 2015). Different steps can, however, be taken for minimizing the risks that are associated with the applications. Application security tools use "manual code reviews" and therefore is time-consuming. The use of these tools also has its benefits, such as increasing speed, better coverage paths, and increasing efficiency. These tools are effective at finding the vulnerabilities and the weaknesses that are associated with any application. Application security tools can remediate workflow, verify the threats and also correlate and identify the patterns and trends. 

• “Static application security testing (SAST)”

These tools are helpful as the tester is aware of the software or the system that is being used. The source code is examined by this tool for reporting and detecting weaknesses which can cause security vulnerabilities. “Source code analyzers” can use “non complied code” for checking defects such as race conditions, input validation, and numerical errors and so on. The problems in each of the applications are identified by these codes (Liu, Wang & Chang, 2017). 

• “Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST)”

This tool is also used by the system; however, the tester has no prior knowledge about the system that is being dealt with. Security threats in the application are identified in a constant running state. These tools function on different operating codes for detecting problems with requests, interfaces and also responses. These tools are efficient in understanding the attacks as the tester gives unexpected and invalid test results that are not expected by the hackers (Mardani et al. 2015). 

• “Software composition analysis (SCA)”

These tools examine the software for determining the main origin of all the components that are present within the software. These tools are considered to be highly effective at finding and identifying different vulnerabilities that are popular in “open source components”. SCA tools help find components that have documental vulnerabilities. SCA tools are designed to find out the anomalies in the system and detecting the threats that are present in the applications. Different sources are present for detecting the problems before they can attack the systems.

• Mobile Application Security Testing (MAST)

There are different risks involved in preparing an application in mobile such as insecure authentication, code tampering, reverse engineering, and insecure data storage and so on. These tools are a combination of forensic, dynamic and static analyzers. They have features that are designed for detecting the specific issues present in mobile applications (Miguel et al. 2015). Different mobile platforms have different malware and software breaches such s improper WIFI connections, data leakage and so on. These tools are used for coping with these problems.

• Test-Coverage Analyzers

These tools are used for measuring the analyzation of program codes. The tools can easily detect if any code has been breached or any lines of conduct are not able to reach to program execution. This can be a security concern. Some of these tools can incorporate the functionality into their products and make standalone products.

Security in web applications is important in today's world. Many areas need to be considered for getting access to basic application software (Munodawafa & Awad, 2018). There are many issues that a web application security can deal with, such as user privileges, “security over password” and so on.  The people dealing with such applications must be aware of the security system and its uses and benefits. There are also different kinds of security assessments. Developers need to be aware of these systems and develop a secure channel before an application is online. These application systems are created for getting better security over applications so that confidential data is no more leaked and are safe from internet hackers.  There are different access points in a particular application. Developers must make sure that all the access points are crossed and checked before any data is added in the software and is given to the user.  These access points are used for gathering information for keeping the system safe (Perera et al. 2016). Users deal with different security breaches. It is therefore important that they are given all the necessary information to the users regarding the appropriate technologies and steps. Users in each of the system are identified with the help of their information. The data breaches in a system can be solved by providing adequate security tools and software developers. Many information systems can be used for gaining proper knowledge regarding the breaches (Rafique et al. 2015).  

Conclusion 

It can be concluded that application security is important for every application. Each of the systems and devices must have proper encryptions and codes for securing the data. Hackers generally use adaptive measures for hacking into the systems. Software developers have to be aware of such breaches and the loss of codes. More security enhancements are required for making the security breach-proof. Security breaches have become common nowadays as technology has advanced and life has become fast-paced. People forget to follow the basic security protocols before using or handling any devices. Confidential details and information are uploaded in the devices without having a thorough check of the amount of security. There are different amounts of data and security threats open to each of the systems. A proper security protocol and security tools must be installed in each of the applications for guarantying safety. A data breach has also become common. Therefore the software developers must know the different activities and devices that are set up for designing the tools. The different application security and security assessment tools are developed for guarantying the information and security protocols for each of the systems. It is known that different applications work without any encryption or security. These must be avoided for preventing any leakage.