How Can a Business Regulate the OWASP Standard?
So you’ve secured the code in your web app with OWASP Top Ten. It passed with flying colors! 😇
Now what?
How can a business verify that your web app is compliant and place its stamp of approval to be certified for customer assurance?
Begin by security testing the web application.
Normally, testing is a part of the development process; however, testing for security is another ballgame. After the web application has been developed, an additional step to functionality testing is security testing.
A big part of security testing is performing vulnerability scans. These probes use typical attacks based on the OWASP Top Ten security risks and known vulnerabilities of the components in your framework. OWASP is the baseline requirement for all of the security standards.
Once you have met the basic security requirements of OWASP, you can place additional safeguards in your web application to gain compliance with HIPAA or PCI DSS regulations. These tests and scans should provide the business with a good idea of how secure the web application is.
However, this does not mean that the web application is accredited and ready to go. A business cannot use their own employees to prove they are accredited, because it would be difficult to remain impartial to strict guidelines. A third party vendor is required to certify a web application as compliant.
You should test for OWASP compliance regularly. Then retest as new vulnerabilities and patches come out. Any new vulnerabilities will need to be mitigated to meet the standard. :soleil:
Regulations such as HIPAA, PCI DSS, SOC1, and SOC2 have different levels of certification depending on various factors.
For example, PCI DSS compliance will require either Level 1 or Level 2 testing depending on the number of credit card transactions. The higher the number, the more involved the testing and audits are. SOC1 and SOC2 audits can be done once or over a period of time. A SOC2 audit can take an entire year to complete before accreditation!
On top of that, businesses also have to worry about renewing certification.
Businesses are responsible for acquiring and maintaining compliance as based on their security requirements. As you may remember in the first chapter, the value of the asset determines the budget for security which includes the cost of compliance.
Let’s Recap!
Now that you have leaned secure coding practices to provide a quality product, let’s see how a business gives their customers a guarantee.
The business can’t just accredit themselves as being compliant to regulations like OWASP, PCI, or HIPAA.
They will need a third party vendor that specializes in examining a business for compliance in those regulations.
These regulations can be pretty strict with larger companies, so it can take months of testing to get certified.
