Zero-days can give defenders in IT organizations fits. Companies in the high-tech sector tend to rely on traditional security tools like Web Application Firewalls (WAFs) and conventional Runtime Application Self-Protection (RASP) solutions to guard their Java applications. These sorts of tools depend on known threat signatures and publicly available information like the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) database. When your tools only recognize threats they’ve seen before, they tend to miss unreported vulnerabilities like zero-days.
Let’s talk about why zero-days are so tough to defend against — particularly in the IT sector, why traditional defenses often strike out, and what you can do to overcome the challenge.
The Challenge of Zero-Day Exploits in the IT Sector
In 2023, the cybersecurity landscape witnessed a substantial increase in zero-day vulnerabilities. Google’s Threat Analysis Group and Mandiant reported 97 zero-day vulnerabilities exploited in the wild, a significant rise from 62 in 2022. Meanwhile, 11 of the top 15 exploited vulnerabilities in 2023 were initially zero-day, underscoring the growing threat to organizations.
The IT sector feels this pain acutely. Java applications are the backbone of countless enterprise systems, but they’re also prime targets for attackers. The vulnerabilities most likely to target IT sector applications often fall into categories like insecure deserialization, remote code execution (RCE), and improper input validation. These vulnerabilities are prevalent because many IT sector applications rely on complex frameworks and libraries, such as Java’s serialization mechanisms or web frameworks, which, while powerful, can introduce exploitable flaws.
- Insecure deserialization occurs when untrusted data is deserialized without proper validation, allowing attackers to execute arbitrary code during the deserialization process.
- Remote code execution vulnerabilities enable attackers to run malicious code on a target system, often by exploiting flaws in input handling or deserialization processes.
- Improper input validation can lead to various attacks, including SQL injection and cross-site scripting (XSS), by allowing malicious input to be processed without adequate sanitization.
Attackers exploit these vulnerabilities to steal data, disrupt services, or gain a foothold to escalate privileges for further attacks.
Waratek’s Proactive Defense with Declarative Rules
Waratek addresses these challenges through our unique approach to RASP, which employs declarative rules to monitor and control application behavior at runtime. This approach enables proactive defense against zero-day exploits by enforcing security policies directly within the application’s execution environment.
The Waratek platform uses declarative rules to specify desired security outcomes without detailing the implementation process. For example, a rule can state that deserialization operations should be restricted, effectively mitigating insecure deserialization vulnerabilities—a common attack vector in Java applications. By defining these policies, Waratek ensures that applications adhere to secure behaviors, regardless of underlying vulnerabilities. This means that a vulnerability does not have to be known to the security team in order to be thwarted within your application.
Technical Advantages of Waratek’s Approach
- Immutable Security Policies: Waratek’s declarative rules are immutable, meaning they cannot be altered by changes in the application’s codebase. This immutability ensures consistent enforcement of security policies, preventing regressions and maintaining protection even as applications evolve.
- Granular Control: The platform allows for precise control over application behaviors, such as restricting process execution or controlling file access. This granularity enables tailored security measures that align with specific application requirements and threat models.
- Immediate Protection: Waratek’s Java security platform can deploy security patches and policies in real-time, without necessitating application restarts or code modifications. This capability provides immediate protection against emerging threats, reducing the window of vulnerability.
Real-World Impact
The effectiveness of Waratek’s approach is evident in its ability to protect against widespread vulnerabilities. For instance, during the 2023 MOVEit data breach, a zero-day vulnerability led to significant data theft across various organizations. To read more about that breach, click here.
Waratek’s platform, with its real-time monitoring and control capabilities, could have mitigated such exploits by enforcing strict security policies, thereby preventing unauthorized access and data exfiltration.
Get Started Today
The use of zero-day exploits is increasingly prevalent, and IT organizations require security solutions that go beyond traditional defenses. By embedding security policies directly into the application’s runtime environment, Waratek ensures continuous protection against both known and unknown threats. This allows all stakeholders, from your customers, to your CISO, to your board to rest easy knowing they are protected by a resilient security program. A program which doesn’t just wait around for zero-day exploits to pop up, but proactively seeks out and eliminates them as soon as they pop up.
