Low-code/no-code (LCNC) and robotic process automation (RPA) have gained tremendous popularity, but how secure are they? In the era of rapid digital transformation, is your security team paying enough attention? In an age where business users can quickly build applications using platforms like Microsoft PowerApps, UiPath, ServiceNow, Mendix and OutSystems?
Simple facts are often glossed over. While low-code/no-code (LCNC) applications and robotic process automation (RPA) can increase efficiency and agility, their dark security aspects require closer scrutiny. LCNC App security has emerged as a relatively new field, and even experienced security practitioners and security teams are grappling with the dynamic nature and sheer volume of citizen-developed apps. The accelerated pace of LCNC development creates unique challenges for security professionals, emphasizing the need for dedicated efforts and solutions to effectively address the security nuances of low-code development environments.
Digital transformation: at the expense of security?
One of the reasons security is taking a backseat is the widespread concern that security controls are potential speed bumps in the digital transformation journey. Many citizen developers strive to create applications quickly while unknowingly creating new risks.
In fact, LCNC applications expose many business applications to the same risks and harms as traditionally developed applications. Ultimately, LCNC needed a cohesive security solution that balanced business success, continuity and security.
As organizations dive headfirst into LCNC and RPA solutions, it’s time to admit that current AppSec stacks are insufficient to protect the critical assets and data exposed by LCNC applications. Most organizations require manual, cumbersome LCNC development security measures.
Unlocking uniqueness: Security challenges in LCNC and RPA environments
While the security challenges and threat vectors in LCNC and RPA environments look similar to traditional software development, the devil is in the details. To democratize software development to a wider audience, LCNC and RPA bring about revolutionary changes in development environments, processes, and participants. There are three main challenges with this kind of decentralized application creation.
First, citizens and automation developers are often more prone to inadvertent logic errors, which can lead to security vulnerabilities. Second, from a visibility perspective, security teams are dealing with a new kind of shadow IT, or more accurately, shadow engineering. Third, the security team has little control over the life cycle of the LCNC application.
Governance, Compliance, Security: The Triple Threat
The three-headed monster (governance, compliance, and security) plaguing CISOs, security architects, and security teams becomes even more ominous in LCNC and RPA environments. To illustrate this, here are some examples that are certainly not comprehensive:
- Governance challenges manifest themselves in outdated application versions lurking in production and retired applications, causing immediate concern.
- From PII leaks to HIPAA violations, compliance breaches indicate that the regulatory framework for LCNC applications is not as robust as it should be.
- Age-old security issues such as unauthorized data access and default passwords still exist, challenging the perception that the LCNC platform provides foolproof protection.
Four critical safety steps
In the e-book “Low-Code/No-Code and RPA: Rewards and Risks,” security researchers at Nokod Security suggest that a four-step process can and should be introduced in LCNC application development.
- Discover – Establishing and maintaining comprehensive visibility across all applications and automations is critical to strong security. An accurate, up-to-date inventory is critical to overcoming blind spots and ensuring proper security and compliance processes.
- monitor – Comprehensive monitoring includes evaluating third-party components, implementing processes to confirm the absence of malicious code, and preventing accidental data leakage. Effectively preventing the risk of critical data leakage requires careful identification and classification of data usage to ensure that applications and automated systems process data according to their respective classifications. Governance involves proactively monitoring developer activity, specifically reviewing modifications made in the production environment after a release.
- Irregularities – Effective remedies must involve citizen developers. Communicate clearly using easy-to-understand language and LCNC platform-specific terminology, with step-by-step remediation guides. When dealing with difficult remediation scenarios, you must introduce necessary compensating controls.
- Protect applications – Use runtime controls to detect malicious behavior within applications and automation or within applications.
While the above steps provide a foundation, the reality of the ever-expanding attack surface discovered by current application security stacks forces a re-evaluation. When organizations produce dozens of LCNC applications and RPA automation every week, manual security processes don’t scale enough. Manual approaches have limited effectiveness, especially when companies use multiple LCNC and RPA platforms. Now is the time to provide dedicated security solutions for LCNC application security.
Nokod Security: Groundbreaking low-code/no-code application security
The Nokod Security platform provides a central security solution that addresses this ever-changing and complex threat landscape and the unique nature of LCNC application development.
The Nokod platform provides centralized security, governance and compliance solutions for LCNC applications and RPA automation. Nokod simplifies security throughout the entire lifecycle of LCNC applications by managing cybersecurity and compliance risks.
Key features of the Nokod enterprise platform include:
- Discover all low-code/no-code applications and automation within your organization
- Place these apps according to specific policies
- Identify security issues and detect vulnerabilities
- Automated remediation and authorization tools for low-code/no-code/RPA developers
- Increase productivity through lean security teams
in conclusion:
In the dynamic landscape of contemporary business technology, organizations have ushered in a new era with widespread adoption of low-code/no-code (LCNC) and robotic process automation (RPA) platforms. Despite the surge in innovation, serious security vulnerabilities still exist. Enterprises must have a complete understanding of whether these cutting-edge applications are compliant and do not have vulnerabilities or hide malicious activity. Current application security measures often fail to pay attention to this expanding attack surface, which poses considerable risks.
For more timely information on low-code/no-code application security, follow Nokod Security on LinkedIn.
