The Latest Trends Report from Cenzic Reveals 99 Percent of Tested Applications are Vulnerable to Attacks

CAMPBELL, Calif., March 6, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Cenzic Inc., the leading provider of application security intelligence to reduce security risks, today released the Cenzic Application Vulnerability Trends Report 2013. The report demonstrates that the overwhelming presence of web application vulnerabilities remains a constant problem, with an astounding 99 percent of applications tested revealing security risks, while additionally shedding light on pressing vulnerabilities within mobile application security.

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Gathered during the Cenzic Managed Security team's analysis of applications in production, the report reveals the massive number of vulnerabilities prevalent in web and mobile applications today. The report highlights the type, frequency and severity of vulnerabilities found and predicts which vulnerabilities will pose the greatest risk in web and mobile applications in production throughout 2013.

"Securing the application layer must be addressed more realistically by today's businesses," said Scott Parcel, chief technology officer at Cenzic. "The exposure that organizations face from the trove of existing application vulnerabilities and from evolving threats has been laid bare this year, however most organizations have not comprehensively acted to defend themselves from these application level threats. This trend continues to get worse; as the rush to create a multitude of connected mobile apps has led corporations to essentially rip out walls and replace them with unlocked doors, leaving them even less aware of how to secure at scale."

The report also includes a study of mobile security threats, focusing on how data is transferred to and stored on mobile devices. According to Cenzic's findings, Input Validation (21 percent), Session Management (11 percent) and Privacy Violation (25 percent) combine to account for 57 percent of mobile vulnerabilities. These results suggest that while storing unencrypted sensitive data on sometimes-lost mobile devices is a significant cause for concern, the often-unsecured web services commonly associated with mobile applications can pose an even bigger risk.

"Businesses are moving into the mobile space for more and more activities—both for their internal and customer-facing applications," continued Bala Venkat, chief marketing officer at Cenzic. "As the mobile space continues to evolve, we are seeing that for all the fear over malware and bots, much of the risk still resides in back-end server communication. Locking down this connection is the key to protecting not just an individual's sensitive information, but that of an entire organization."

Find the full report here: https://info.cenzic.com/2013-Application-Security-Trends-Report.html

Key findings of Cenzic Application Vulnerability Trends Report 2013 include:

• Cross Site Scripting vulnerabilities rose from 17 percent in 2011 to 26 percent in 2012, making it the most common threat over the past year.
• Information Leakage, Session Management, and Authentication and Authorization all remained prominent vulnerabilities in 2012.
  • Information Leakage - 16 percent
  • Session Management - 16 percent
  • Authentication and Authorization - 13 percent
• The number of vulnerabilities in those applications tested remained high, with a median number of 13 vulnerabilities.

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About Cenzic

Cenzic provides the leading application security intelligence platform to continuously assess Cloud, Mobile and Web applications to reduce online security risk. Cenzic's solutions scale from single applications to enterprise-level deployments with hybrid approaches that enable testing of applications at optimal levels. Cenzic helps brands of all sizes protect their reputation and manage security risk in the face of malicious attacks. Cenzic's solutions are used in all parts of the software development lifecycle, and most importantly in production, to protect against new threats even after the application has been deployed. Cenzic's application security intelligence platform is architected to handle web, cloud and mobile applications and is the first to provide risk reduction recommendations for business, application developers and specific applications. Today, Cenzic secures more than half a million online applications and trillions of dollars of commerce for Fortune 1000 companies, all major security companies, government agencies, universities and SMBs. More information about Cenzic can be found at www.cenzic.com.

Media Contact:
Sam Katzen
Schwartz MSL
+1.415.512.0770
[email protected]

SOURCE Cenzic Inc.