Looking in the rearview mirror

The application threat landscape has rapidly evolved. For years, users consumed applications over the internet using the common tool – web browsers. At every point in time, there were 2-5 web browsers to support, and the variety of application development and testing frameworks was relatively limited. For instance, almost all databases were built using the SQL language. Unfortunately, not long before hackers began to abuse applications in order to steal, delete and modify data. They could take advantage of applications in different ways, primarily by tricking the application user, injecting or remotely executing code. Shortly after, commercialized solutions named Web Application Firewalls (WAF) emerged, and the community responded by creating the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) to set and maintain standards and methodologies for secure applications.