Snyk’s risk-based approach to prioritization

Vulnerability identification is a key part of application security (AppSec). This process entails tracking and reporting the number of vulnerabilities found and fixed to give stakeholders clear insight into the organization’s security posture. However, identifying and monitoring vulnerabilities using traditional methods can make risk evaluation more difficult.

When security teams look at the total number of vulnerabilities within an application, they’re not getting a complete picture because true risk is not categorized. For example, if an organization has a higher amount of vulnerabilities, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s at higher risk for exploitation, especially if the vulnerabilities are low severity. Similarly, fewer vulnerabilities don’t mean a lower risk — they could all be easily exploitable. 

This is where risk-based prioritization comes in. Instead of lumping vulnerabilities together and reviewing each one, AppSec teams focus on the highest priority (or highest severity) vulnerabilities first. This prevents time being spent on vulnerabilities that may not have an immediate impact on an organization. Taking this type of proactive approach helps organizations optimize remediation efforts and strengthen their security posture while fostering collaboration between security and developer teams. 

Snyk’s approach to risk-based prioritization 

When implementing risk-based prioritization, it’s necessary to have comprehensive visibility across the software development lifecycle (SDLC). Snyk’s developer-first, holistic approach to risk-based prioritization does this by enhancing visibility and context into all parts of an application and the SDLC, identifying security gaps, and managing coverage while prioritizing and managing vulnerabilities based on risk. 

With this approach, there are several key factors Snyk uses for assessing risks:

• Vulnerability severity: Using the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS), Snyk assesses and communicates security vulnerabilities and their impact. The Snyk Security Research team also reviews and triages Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) to ensure severities are accurately ranked.  

• Exploitability: Snyk’s vulnerability database includes Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS) data to identify the likelihood that a vulnerability will be exploited in the next 30 days.  

• Reachability: Through expert security research and automated static analysis, Snyk can help determine how reachable or accessible a vulnerability is from your application code. 

• Runtime context: As AppSec teams identify vulnerabilities, it’s essential to know which vulnerabilities are deployed, loaded, or public-facing when running the application. Snyk does this through seamless integrations of runtime data to provide granular insights.  

• Business criticality: When reviewing risk, it’s important to note which vulnerabilities have the biggest impact on critical business functions. Snyk allows users to identify an application’s business impact to properly score risk.  

By assessing risk through these key factors, Snyk provides users with comprehensive and contextual visibility, enabling developers to address security issues faster and earlier in their workflows. 

The role of application security posture management in risk-based prioritization

Application security posture management (ASPM) helps AppSec teams manage and scale application security programs. ASPM tools work across the SDLC to identify, prioritize, and manage risk. With ASPM and application security testing (AST) tools, risk is continuously reviewed, giving teams real-time insight into their applications throughout the SDLC. Through these insights, developers can focus on security issues with the highest severity. 

By using ASPM solutions like Snyk AppRisk, organizations have more insight and control over their applications. With Snyk AppRisk, developers are empowered to address these security issues without impacting their productivity. AppRisk integrates with Snyk’s own AST tools as well as third-party sources to give developers a complete picture of application risk. Instead of requiring AppSec teams to work through a backlog of all security issues, teams can quickly identify the risks and vulnerabilities that have an immediate impact on applications and the business. 

When AppSec teams receive more accurate risk assessments, they can prioritize potential risks and ensure security efforts align with business objectives. Additionally, an ASPM solution gives developers the tools they need to implement fixes, fostering collaboration between security and developers. 

Implementing risk-based prioritization with Snyk AppRisk

Snyk AppRisk’s risk-based prioritization makes it easy for AppSec teams to implement and manage a developer security program. Some key features of Snyk AppRisk that support risk-based prioritization include:

• Application inventory and context gathering: Snyk AppRisk inventories and organizes applications’ repositories and packages to provide context and insight into risks. This includes securely managing application data through classification, such as business criticality and code ownership. 

• Policy-based security coverage management: Snyk AppRisk enables AppSec teams to track and define which Snyk controls are needed to protect key assets. By creating policies and classifying assets, Snyk controls are applied consistently across applications, ensuring remediation efforts are properly focused. 

• Risk scoring and prioritization: By providing a comprehensive model of Snyk-identified issues throughout the SDLC, AppSec teams can easily use Snyk AppRisk to determine which issues are the highest severity and where remediation efforts should be focused. 

• Performance analysis and reporting: The monitoring dashboard through Snyk AppRisk gives AppSec teams insight into app, asset, and coverage trends. Teams can assess and measure risk reduction efforts to help drive continuous improvement, while easily sharing reports and analysis with stakeholders throughout the organization.  

Best practices for adopting a risk-based approach 

To successfully adopt a risk-based approach, teams should work on:

• Establishing a shared understanding of risk

• Defining and refining risk assessment criteria 

• Continuous monitoring and adjustment of risk models

• Measuring and communicating the impact and importance of risk-based prioritization

By following these best practices, AppSec teams can adopt a risk-based approach that effectively addresses application security across their organization, eliminating the greatest threats to the business. 

The future of risk-based prioritization in application security 

As we’ve entered a new era of software development through the shift left movement, security has moved to the forefront. Even so, AppSec teams must continue to evolve and adapt when managing and assessing risk, especially as AI and machine learning become more prevalent in developer workflows. 

By adapting risk-based prioritization, AppSec teams can ensure they’re continually monitoring and adjusting risk assessments while spending more time working on the most critical issues that impact the business. 

Snyk’s developer-first ASPM solution, Snyk AppRisk, makes it easy for AppSec teams to efficiently build, manage, and scale their application security programs. Through comprehensive visibility and insight into their application landscape, AppSec teams can identify and manage potential risks through risk-based prioritization. Book a demo today to learn more about how Snyk AppRisk can provide the visibility, context, and control you need to manage and reduce application risk.