CDM-CYBER-DEFENSE-eMAGAZINE-March-2019

Overcoming Software Security Issues Caused by the
Third-Party Software Procurement Model
As software becomes more sophisticated, organizations of all sizes continue to harness its
capabilities to transform their go-to-market strategies and streamline their operations. Whether
the software is developed in-house, through third-party vendors or is of the pre-packaged, off-theshelf
variety; businesses are looking to exploit the latest innovations in order to more effectively
compete in the marketplace.
With the rise in the value of intangible software-based services and the data collected through
those services, companies have invested heavily in security software and systems in order to
protect their most important assets. At the same time, DevOps have been given the mandate to
implement more and more innovative functionality, as quickly as possible.
This has put the security and DevOps teams at cross-purposes. Getting software provisioned as
quickly as possible has not given the security team’s adequate time to ensure full product security.
Until recently, ensuring software security has not had the same priority.
That is changing. With new data security and privacy regulations being enacted in some states
and the E.U., the C-Suite is pushing hard to have its cake and eat it too. In other words, CEOs,
CIOs and CSOs are mandating that software be more capable, developed and provisioned more
quickly, while being more hardened against attack.
The current third-party software procurement model makes the previously mentioned C-Suite
goals unattainable.