Time is Money - and a Cyber Risk Problem

The AI boom continues to shake up the world as we know it, fueling the rapid development of new technologies and exposing companies to unprecedented levels of cyber risk exposure. As innovation accelerates, regulation and compliance are struggling to keep pace, leaving many organizations vulnerable to malicious hackers.

A Growing Problem on the Horizon

The scale and complexity of hacking have outpaced human capacity to respond, resulting in an increase in flaw remediation time and a greater exposure to exploitation and cyber threats. Finding the flaws is the easy part, but companies are drowning in security debt as they struggle to compete with a growing attack surface and increasingly sophisticated cyber intrusions.

Why Time is of the Essence

The process of fixing flaws often begins in earnest but tapers off over time, with other priorities taking precedence. Unfortunately, the longer a flaw survives, the less likely it is to be resolved. Research has found that the time it takes to fix flaws has skyrocketed, up 47% in five years and 327% in 15, now averaging 252 days. At this rate, businesses could be waiting more than 400 days to fix vulnerabilities by 2030, plunging them into a cycle of whack-a-mole with growing security debt.

The Evolving Nature of Cyber Flaws

As applications become bigger and incorporate more third-party components, the scope for potential flaws increases, making it more time-consuming to remediate issues. Even if an in-house team is writing flawless code, the rest of the supply chain isn't – 70% of applications have flaws in third-party code due to the use of open-source libraries.

The Pressure to Roll Out Features

Many teams are under immense pressure to rapidly roll out new features, thus deprioritizing security fixes unless they are absolutely critical. Severity is no longer a major driver of flaw remediation, and more companies are sleepwalking into the red of security debt. Left unresolved, organizations become more exposed to security breaches as fix times stretch and the software ecosystem grows in complexity.

The Digital Skills Gap

The developer shortage has been bubbling away for some time, and it is no surprise that it is having a knock-on effect on security debt. Finding developers or security specialists with both domain knowledge and security expertise is challenging. Until we find a way to close the digital skills gap, this limited capacity will delay fix timelines further.

Breaking Down Barriers

But there are ways organizations can tackle the problem of security debt and get their cyber resilience back on track. By having visibility and proper integration across the whole Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), companies can prevent net new flaws through automation and feedback loops. This can be achieved at scale with AI, using existing AI capabilities to boost fix capacity and speed.

A Long-Term Solution

The upcoming cyber policy measures set to be introduced later this year will be critical for the automation of flaw remediation. Legislation like the UK's Cyber Security and Resilience Bill will help direct the entire supply chain on what needs to be fixed, while holding bad actors accountable.

Overhauling Security Debt

Perhaps one of the most immediate solutions is for organizations to overhaul the ways in which they approach security debt. With third-party flaws being one of the biggest contributors to security debt, it's time companies properly evaluated the third parties with which they engage. Avoiding those riddled with flaws by using software composition analysis (SCA) can slash major issues across applications.

True Prioritization

True prioritization is also essential – if everything is a priority, then nothing is. Working on the flaws that are most severe as quickly as possible is a quick win for time-poor developers. Modern software security is all about remediating real risk with context and having visibility across the board.

Tapping into AI Solutions

With the software ecosystem ever-growing in complexity, it's never been more important for organizations to tap into AI solutions and re-examine how they take on these cyber-attacks. By leveraging AI capabilities, companies can streamline their security efforts and stay ahead of the threats.

The Future of Cybersecurity

As we move forward, it's clear that cybersecurity will continue to be a major challenge for organizations. But by acknowledging the growing problem of security debt and taking proactive steps to address it, businesses can improve their resilience and reduce the risk of costly breaches.