Scared of a Data Breach? You Should Be

Data breaches are not only a massive headache for companies to deal with, but they can also have severe legal and financial implications.

Software developers and companies have become more wary of data breaches in recent years. Although cybersecurity awareness and capabilities are improving, the sophistication and negative impact of cyberattacks have also skyrocketed. According to a 2023 IBM report, the global average cost of a data breach in 2023 was $4.45 million — a 15% increase over the past three years.

Data breaches happen when unauthorized individuals gain access to confidential information. The impact of a data breach increases when cybersecurity teams fail to identify and mitigate data breaches on time. Such breaches can have far-reaching consequences, such as identity fraud, spamming, extortion, data loss, fines, reputation loss, and lawsuits.

Read on to learn how cybersecurity and code quality tools can strengthen your code, mitigate cybersecurity risks, and how Kiuwan ensures adherence to relevant regulations and policies.

Is Your Code a House of Cards 🂡? Strengthen It with Kiuwan

Coders who lack expertise, resources, and time may produce poor-quality code with functionality, readability, performance, maintainability, and security issues. If left unfixed, such code can cause software delivery issues and bring development to a halt. This can lead to increased time-to-market, poor reviews, and higher project costs.

That’s where Kiuwan’s Code Quality & Governance tool comes in. Designed for IT teams and Quality Assurance (QA) and security engineers, Kiuwan Code Quality & Governance strengthens code quality by allowing teams to group the results of source code analysis into four portfolios:

• Provider
• Business value
• Technology
• Quality model

Teams can also use Kiuwan’s Code Quality & Governance to:

• Make decisions about application portfolios.
• Evaluate the evolution and the best repair scenarios.
• Manage dev teams’ activities.
• Automatically create an action plan with the problems that must be fixed to achieve certain goals.
• Prioritize remediations based on various considerations, including time, cost, and technical resources.
• Ensure adherence to policies regulating the use of open-source code and software.

Don’t Gamble with Security: How to Mitigate Risks ⚠️

In light of the alarming uptick in cybersecurity incidents, many software developers and developer team managers have increased their cybersecurity investments. IBM’s 2023 report reveals that 51% of organizations plan to boost security investments in employee training, incident response (IR) planning and testing, and threat detection due to experienced breaches.

Developers and organizations can minimize the risk of cyberattacks with Kiuwan’s Static Application Security Testing (SAST) and Software Composition Analysis (SCA) security tools.

How Does Kiuwan SAST Work?

Kiuwan’s SAST tests software by identifying cybersecurity flaws in the source code without running the program. This method reveals vulnerabilities, such as SQL injections, before the Quality Assurance (QA) phase. Identifying these vulnerabilities empowers developer teams to move QA to an earlier part of the SDLC and reduce the attack surface to prevent an expensive data breach. This process is called “shifting left.”

Kiuwan’s SAST provides a wide range of benefits, including:

• A user-friendly dashboard can be easily configured according to project-specific standards and rules.
• It spots vulnerabilities quickly, allowing teams to craft action plans quickly.
• It ensures compliance with relevant security standards.

How Does Kiuwan SCA Work?

Open-source code often contains vulnerabilities that can lead to data loss, theft, and other problems. For example, Heartbleed was a vulnerability in the OpenSSL cryptographic library that allowed a threat actor to read private information from servers and clients running vulnerable software versions. 

Kiuwan’s SCA detects open-source components in your codebase, so programmers and companies can assess vulnerability, ensure code quality, and manage license compliance. Features include:

• Continuous scanning
• Open-source library tracking
• Vulnerability tracking
• Obsolescence tracking
• Easy integration

Avoid the Costly Fallout: Compliance Assurance for Software Regulations 🔒

Failing to meet cybersecurity industry standards such as OWASP, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and CWE may lead to potential data leaks, ransoms, data loss, and reputational loss. However, it can also lead to costly fines and lawsuits. 

For instance, a security gap causing a data leak of customers’ private HIPAA-protected health information could result in penalties ranging from $100 to $50,000 per individual violation. The exact amount depends on whether the neglect is willful and whether the company corrects the security gap within the required timeframe.

Using Kiuwan’s tools is one of the quickest and most reliable ways to ensure compliance assurance for software regulations. Both Kiuwan’s SAST and SCA tools comply with the most important security standards in software development, including:

• National Institute of Standards of Technology (NIST): Founded in 1901, the NIST creates the security standards for software development. For example, NIST compliance requires companies to follow the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), a specification for encrypting electronic data, so third-party actors have difficulty accessing private information.
• Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP): This non-profit organization seeks to build a nonpartisan software security information source. It is the creator of the OWASP Top 10, a standard awareness document for web application security and developers that represents a broad consensus about the most critical cybersecurity risks to web apps. 
• Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS): This is a set of rules for all organizations that store, access, or transit card payments and associated data.
• Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA): This is a U.S. federal law governing the security and privacy of personal health information (PHI) for certain entities in the health industry, such as health insurers, healthcare providers, and health exchange organizations. 

Experience Kiuwan Security 🚀

If you want a powerful tool suite to strengthen your security posture, consider implementing Kiuwan’s tools. Code Quality & Governance can improve your code quality. SAST and SCA can prevent and mitigate cybersecurity risks while ensuring compliance with relevant software and industry regulations such as HIPAA and NIST. Interested in learning more about how Kiuwan can help? Get a free trial of Kiuwan’s tools. With support for 30+ programming languages, Kiuwan scans code for vulnerabilities, fully complies with and meets security standards, and integrates easily with your continuous integration (CI) and continuous deployment (CD) pipeline and DevOps environment.