Application Security Orchestration and Correlation (ASOC) is a category of application security (AppSec) solutions that help streamline vulnerability testing and remediation through workflow automation. ASOC solutions collect data from various AppSec sources (such as SAST, DAST, and IAST tools) and combine them into a single database. ASOC solutions then correlate these findings by prioritizing critical improvement efforts. The result enables security teams to facilitate AppSec activities in an informed and efficient manner.
What are the benefits of ASOC?
The most notable benefit of ASOC is the role it plays in improving DevSecOps efficiency. As agile development requires faster speeds and more tools, adequate management of resources and improvement activities poses major challenges for security teams. ASOC plays an important role in helping to meet these challenges. More specifically, ASOC benefits security efforts in several ways:
Improved resource allocation:
Incorporating ASOC into a development environment provides critical fix prioritization information without hindering existing applications. AppSec tools uncover numerous vulnerabilities, some of which may be “false positives” that do not need code fixes. This leads to an overload of identified problems that require evaluation to determine whether they really need attention. An ASOC solution enables critical prioritization of findings, saving resources and costs.
Centralized vulnerability management:
While each AppSec tool used in a development environment plays an important role in securing an organization’s applications, they all provide results in different ways. Additionally, multiple tools may find the same problem. Efforts to extract results from all AppSec tools are time-consuming and slow down development. With an ASOC solution, analysis results from multiple AppSec tools and manual testing are aggregated, the same issues identified by different tools are deduplicated, and all remaining results are automatically correlated and prioritized in one central hub.
Better understanding of risk:
ASOC solutions enable CISOs and development leaders to quickly identify the highest risk projects in their application portfolios. It also provides metrics that show how well teams are performing vulnerability management and AppSec activities over time. Using these metrics, teams can understand how well or how poorly they are performing at securing their applications and make adjustments accordingly.
Continuous and automatic scanning:
Instead of manual scanning applications, ASOC solutions offer a way to schedule automatic scans for all the security tools an organization uses. The frequency and specific actions of the tool can all be defined and adjusted within an ASOC solution. This eliminates the need for piecemeal or individual screening events.
Automated AppSec processes:
ASOC solutions enable predefined cross-team workflows to be easily set up and automated. Instead of relying on communication between security engineers and developers, both teams are notified when something falls outside their agreed-upon processes.
How can ASOC bridge the gap between AppSec and CI/CD?
A common AppSec issue is the distinction between vulnerability management and continuous integration/continuous development (CI/CD) pipelines. ASOC solutions can help close this gap by combining integrated testing results from multiple sources into a single tool, correlating findings and prioritizing high-risk vulnerabilities. This allows developers to orchestrate security within a CI/CD pipeline without hindering development speed.
What does ASOC mean for the future of AppSec?
As demands on security teams continue to increase, ASOC will undoubtedly play an increasingly critical role in helping to alleviate the extreme vulnerability burden facing security and development teams. Offering continuous, automated scanning across the existing process pipeline, ASOC solutions provide a single source for scheduling automated scans across all tools used in an organization. The future state of AppSec will include uses moving towards embracing ASOC as a single source of truth and using it to effectively and efficiently manage AppSec portfolios.
How can Synopsys help you?
Synopsys Intelligent Orchestration
Intelligent Orchestration allows you to perform the right tests at the right time and deliver the right results to the right people. Provides customized AppSec pipeline that automates security testing across the entire software development lifecycle . It automatically runs the right security tools or triggers manual testing activities depending on how significant the code changes are, the overall risk score, and a company’s own security policies.
Synopsys Code Dx
Code Dx is an ASOC solution that helps you stay at the forefront of innovation through the power of automation without compromising security or speed.
It offers the ability to centralize and align application security testing across the entire development pipeline in a scalable, repeatable, and automated manner. Code DX collects, correlates, and then prioritizes the results.
Code Dx Correlation Engine reduces time spent fixing issues by combining, deduplicating and correlating results from all your AppSec scanning tools (static and dynamic, commercial and open source) from a single console to more effectively manage your vulnerabilities.
With prioritized results and the ability to track remediation, teams are held accountable and key stakeholders can easily understand how well the organization is meeting its security duties.