How resilient is your application? Maybe you've set up a suite of logging tools, an APM, and tests to handle all your own code. What happens when a third-party API goes down? What happens when it stays up, but slows down to the point that your dependent services start to fail? Finding a modern application that doesn't rely on third-party APIs is rare, particularly with the abundance of social login and sharing.

In a previous post, I wrote about my key take-aways from Verizon’s 2019 Payment Security Report. While it’s no surprise it was full of interesting and useful data, (Verizon’s yearly Data Breach Investigation Report (DBIR) has become required reading.) I was delighted to find an excellent guide on the the 9-5-4 model, a means by which an organization can measure and improve its data protection program. It also details ways in which a company can measure the maturity of the program.

On January 7th, MITRE released ATT&CK for Industrial Control Systems, a taxonomy of real-world cyber adversarial behavior targeting ICS or industrial control systems. These systems operate critical infrastructure in manufacturing and utility industries, and they are popular targets in financial and espionage motivated attacks.

Following the recent U.S. operation in Iraq which resulted in the killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, Iran warned that it will retaliate. Although the international community and both involved countries have taken steps to deescalate the crisis, it is always prudent to stay alert and continually update your cybersecurity programs regardless of whether the opponent is a state actor or just a common cybercriminal.

Tools and features introduced with the intention of benefiting and empowering an organization can sometimes end up being misused. PowerShell is a classic example.

Application performance management (APM) software, sometimes known as application performance monitoring software, is a software as a service (SaaS) type that provides you with a variety of ways to analyze and ensure availability within your application. They can give you metrics in areas such as render times, database load, and failed requests. Modern APM tools are mostly drop-in, all-in-one style solutions. Add a dependency and know everything about why your app is slowing down or crashing.

First, we wanted to wish you a very API New Year. Besides the traditional wishes, we wanted to take the chance to summarize all the great things the team brought to you in 2019... and give you a glimpse into the future.

Just before the holidays, Citrix announced that their Citrix Application Delivery Controller (ADC) and Citrix Gateway are prone to a vulnerability which can allow remote unauthenticated attackers to execute code on vulnerable gateways. This led to a wave of alarming headlines about “80,000 firms” being exposed to hacking due to this flaw.

How does your application handle failure? Your first level of response might focuses on logging and displaying errors, but it merely captures the problem rather than resolving it. What happens if a vital service is offline or under heavy load? What about simply not performing at the standards you might expect? As your application relies more on services that you don't control, like third-party APIs, the need to handle these variables when they arise becomes more important.

Since the implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) on 25 May 2018, organizations and even private citizens have globally begun to re-assess what it means to ‘take security seriously’ and to better understand the massive difference between security and privacy.