Are Your Dev Teams Skipping Steps?

Despite being essential for successful applications, security can get pushed aside during the DevOps process. At Unqork, we want to change that using no-code. 

Everyone takes shortcuts from time to time, but a recent study from Invicti Security reveals some shocking statistics about how often corners are cut during web application development. Even though 86% of organizations say web application security is a key focus point and 57% of dev teams are held accountable to security KPIs, a whopping 70% of development teams still admit to skipping security steps. 

Let’s unpack why so many dev teams are skipping security steps—the most important steps of all!—and explore how no-code can help dev teams accomplish all the tasks necessary for creating secure, high-quality applications.

Why are dev teams skipping steps?

Dev teams aren’t skipping steps because they want to, or because they simply can’t be bothered checking off all of the items on their checklists. Truthfully, today’s dev teams are pulled in many different directions, especially when it comes to digital transformation. Going digital is a top priority right now for enterprises across industries, particularly after the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic. 

“Digital transformation” is more than a buzzword—it’s a term that encapsulates the fundamental shift in business strategy towards digital capabilities. Many businesses are at the beginning of their digital transformation journeys, but many customers already expect these digital tools and then some. This forces companies to move fast and adjust rapidly to customers’ changing digital expectations.

Unfortunately, the cybersecurity threat landscape has expanded with the number of digital applications that have flooded the market. More than 32% of all cybersecurity threats are web application-specific attacks, making them the most common attack vector. With all the massive apps boasting huge codebases, it’s no surprise that 82% of all identified web application vulnerabilities are found in the application’s code. 

All this puts development teams under a lot of pressure. An application’s dev team must guard the app’s attack surface against major cybersecurity threats, including:

• Password theft

• Session hijacking

• A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, which freezes your application’s functionality entirely

• XXS or cross-site scripting, which is when a hacker exploits existing scripts to trick applications into trusting them under false pretenses

As hackers grow smarter and more sophisticated, their attacks become harder to detect and more difficult to deflect. Given these pressures, we can understand why dev teams sometimes skip security steps in an effort to triage security concerns or get to market quickly enough to meet customer demand. 

Code-based applications are notoriously riddled with bugs, and studies have shown that coders spend 75% of their development time locating and squashing them. 

It’s also not surprising that code is at the root of 33% of all security issues that pop up during development. Code-based applications are notoriously riddled with bugs, and studies have shown that coders spend 75% of their development time locating and squashing them. Also, debugging efforts can accidentally make a bad situation worse—removing a bug or chunk of dead code can affect the surrounding code and cause another issue to appear.

When you build with code, your dev team will have no choice but to either skip security steps to get to market in time or complete all security steps while delaying releases. With no-code, you can build high-quality applications fast without sacrificing security.

How no-code can help dev teams

Keeping up with your industry’s rapid pace of change is easy with an enterprise-grade no-code development platform. Building with no-code is already 3x faster than building with code, and templated flows and drag-and-drop components shave even more time off of your development cycle. This gives your dev team the power to skip ahead of the competition without skipping steps, so you can deploy more top-notch applications on time. 

The Unqork Marketplace makes it even easier to bring functionalities together at lightning speeds. The Marketplace enables Creators to seamlessly integrate features and capabilities in just a few clicks, helping the dev team rapidly and reliably build applications that leverage the digital tools your customers crave. Unqork’s no-code capabilities also support faster DevOps in three key ways: 

1. Quality assurance (QA): Releasing updates or new features after applications have been verified can cost your dev team more time in the long run. With no-code, QA testing and retesting are simpler and faster. Plus, Unqork’s QA team takes care of this backend work for you! This supports the correct and timely release of your application.

2. Microservices: Microservices, loosely-coupled application component services, enable dev teams to build apps and make changes without worrying about crashing the entire infrastructure. Building with microservices also shortens the DevOps cycle as a whole, yielding faster and easier deployment. 

3. Feedback and collaboration: No-code lets the business team get involved in every step of the creation process, promoting collaboration throughout the entire DevOps cycle. Since changes are reflected in real-time on no-code platforms, you can keep the feedback loop moving forward even as adjustments are made.

With Unqork, dev teams won’t ever be placed in the position to skip security steps because we take care of all the security backend work for you. Also, our team of experts at Unqork regularly assesses platform security through scans, manual review, and penetration testing, so your team can focus on what’s really important. Along with our no-code features like the Marketplace, microservices, and our QA capabilities, Unqork demonstrates a strong dedication to security and compliance through data encryption, granular RBAC, and a secure system of record. 

Security is at the heart of everything we do at Unqork! We’re here to help your DevOps team do everything they can to protect your platform, no shortcuts necessary.

For more insights into the Unqork platform, request a demonstration with one of our in-house experts. To learn more about the power of no-code, sign up for the Unqork newsletter.