What is RASP? It is known to block a malicious activity, if an application tends to be in production. RASP is known to observe an application in runtime, figuring out the context and behaviour of the working of an application. If RASP is known to detect a threat, like an attempt to be running out a shell, call a database or opening a file. It can ward off potential web application attacks like XSS or SQL setting the tone of zero day exploits and an attempted form of a takeover. For a business with a lean security resource it may turn out o be beneficial. The reason of the same is that it may block attacks immediately where there is no need for any form of human intervention.
Since attacks on web applications is on the rise, a business would find it difficult to safeguard all the applications. Some of the vulnerabilities would not have been mitigated at an early stage within the software development cycle. It may emerge due to various forms of application testing. If there is protection from within the app itself it would enable the companies to balance the security needs with the impetus to roll it out in a phased manner.
With RASP there is no need to be making any sort of changes to the application design. what it means is that the company is free to redesign the application as per their needs. It may turn out to be beneficial for a business when it is maintaining apps for an immediate future. When you are using it along with WAF, as it would be help to detect any form of malicious activity, that may be originating from multiple sources. A RASP can provide real time inputs on the areas where security threat may emerge. Though WAF can provide you with a single view, it provides more insight on what you may see.
A comparison of WAP and RASP
It is an obvious fact that RASP would be confused with its cousin WAF the web application firewall. But if you carefully compare both of them they are different from each other. A WAF is regularly known to analyse application traffic at the perimeter for potential form of malicious attack relying on static rules based on unknown form of attacks. RASP security would be blocking malicious form of attack that will not be occurring in the application itself.
With a WAF it may require some form of a leaning period to be effective. Still it may not be effective to be fending off other types of attack which it has not gone on to witness before. This would leave a business potentially vulnerable of an attack when it has not received any form of rules to cope up with potential threats. With a WASP it would be providing a far reaching defence threat against any type of attacks present at an application layer.
As RASP is known to use the application itself, it is going to monitor and protect the application security even after it is regularly monitored and updated. RASP and WSP are known to complement each other that combines forces to provide a business with a comprehensive and a robust security solution.
WAF is going to provide you visibility on what types of requests are send to the application. An example is if someone has a suspicious request pattern like brute force password. On the other hand RASP tries to understand what an application is doing when they get such requests in the case of someone using a Metaspoilt, an app owner can figure out what is being exploited in an app as it should not be executable run on the system.
The tips for success with RASP
Below are a few tips to achieve success with RASP
- It is an integral part of an application security module- the utility of RASP is that it can ward off potential attacks like SQL injection and CSS at runtime. But you may not solely rely on it to protect a business from any form of an application threat that exists. By opting for a devsecops approach where security would be leftward with a SDLC. It makes sure that you tend to have a comprehensive security solution in place, the possibility of preventing an attack is on the higher side. It would also be dependent upon the unique security needs of a company as you could opt for a RASP solution with WAF capabilities to enhance the benefits that it provides.
- Understand on how the RASP solution would be working with a DevSec Ops ecosystem- since you are evaluating the RASP offering, you have to understand on how it would be working with other tools that you already have in place like DevSec Ops system. Such an integration would allow a company to mitigate multiple threats through web hooks, APIs along with reading technologies as you may be able to monitor and block threats on a real time basis.
- The RASP solution is to be tested before implementation- since RASP is known to integrate closely with other applications, sometimes it may lead to performance issues. If such issues are bound to have a significant impact on the users they are likely to complaint about the change in performance. For these reasons you need to test your RASP application so that you are able to understand on how it has an impact on application performance before aligning it with the environment.
With attackers targeting applications, it is necessary for a business to adopt a comprehensive multi- layer technology to safeguard the data of the customers. Platforms like Appsealing is known to empower companies to formulate a strong security module in a direct way with applications that are in the production stage. It is known to safeguard and block threats that too on a real time basis. It is because of all these reasons that RASP can play a vital role in the application security needs of a company.
