ROI of Web App & API Security: A Contemplation of Strategic Investment

[da_radix]

Considering the scale and frequency of cybercrimes today, there is a pressing need to secure our digital assets. I read a recent report that said $10.5 trillion will be the annual cost of mitigating global cybercrimes by 2025! Doesn’t it ring the bell that securing your web apps and APIs is no longer an option but the need of the hour?    

As business leaders, one of our core goals is to minimize costs and accelerate financial growth for our organizations. Understanding the returns that a potential investment will generate helps in decision-making and enables us to determine its worth. ROI is a simple and effective metric to evaluate the outcomes of an investment.  

However, it’s difficult in some cases where you need to determine the value of something that hasn’t already happened. This is the actual case with evaluating the ROI of web apps and API security. So, how can we determine the ROI for web app & API security?  

Here, I have discussed some crucial factors that drive the ROI for API and web application security.  

Factors That Evaluate ROI for Web App and API Security  

Approach 

I believe that the change in your approach to security testing is a crucial factor in driving ROI. Usually, testing is performed at the end of a software development lifecycle (SDLC), which leaves many loopholes in the production. However, the automated approach to security testing, such as static code analysis, brings significant ROI.  

Automation enables developers to perform testing in the early stages. As a result, it is less costly and easier to fix vulnerabilities. I would also highlight that web app vulnerability testing done at the initial stages, when developers write and assemble code, helps to reduce remediation costs. Testing early would reduce the cost by 6X than what it would be when testing at the later stages.   

Team 

Another source of ROI of web app and API security, in my opinion, is the effective functioning of the development teams. A few of them can handle security concerns with the use of automated tools after training. As a result, the full security team does not need to be involved with the development team, which avoids conflicts and delays.  

In addition, developers will trust the members of their team who also champion security that reduces communication overhead. So, this is how it will drive ROI for your organization.   

Process 

I understand that automation has become the backbone of modern business processes. Even security teams utilize various automation tools to perform web app and API vulnerability scans  that detect potential weaknesses in less time. These tools have also become integral to modern SDLC, which is further speeding up the process.  

Hence, I think it is another factor that contributes to the ROI from web apps and API security. Security teams can reduce their manual work with automation and speed up the remediation process. It helps to release new updates quickly with minimized bugs and security issues.  

User Trust & Reputation 

In my opinion, the next factor that drives ROI for businesses from securing web apps and APIs is user trust and reputation. While reputation is a qualitative measure, it has a high impact on business value and profitability. It may be difficult to quantify reputation, but its results are easily perceptible. The goodwill of a business plays a critical role in retaining existing customers and acquiring new ones. No doubt, earning goodwill takes time, and maintaining the reputation requires attention and effort.  

Needless to say, security incidents can spoil a business's reputation and impact it in the long term. Undoubtedly, this will also affect the ROI of the business. Besides, there are many legal consequences of it. However, when you take the right steps, you can mitigate the risks. For instance, security risks can be avoided by finding and fixing weaknesses with a quick web application vulnerability scan .      

Cost Benefits 

While security seems to be a cost, it is an investment that helps you protect yourself from future losses. It is a payment that you make today to secure your web apps and APIs from cyberattacks that might take place in the future. So, you should see it as an investment instead of a cost. In the absence of security, you have to suffer financial losses associated with injection attacks and other types of cyber threats. It saves this cost by minimizing the potential risks.  

As per the data breach report of 2023 by IBM, the average cost of data breaches worldwide stood at $4.45 million. The cost of such a data breach is quite substantial than what you invest in security products. Investments in securing web apps and APIs prevent potential losses and avoid additional costs that you incur during the recovery phase.  

Competitive Advantage 

As fast-moving businesses, we must always aim to introduce functionalities that create differentiation in the market.  When you deploy security mechanisms for your web apps and APIs, you attract privacy-conscious customers. It’s not just about defending your digital assets; it helps to foster confidence among customers. But in the case of a data breach, the customers will not give a second thought while switching to your competitors.  

Vulnerabilities pose a real challenge for web and API security as they are the primary reason for cyberattacks. So, identifying and addressing these vulnerabilities before putting applications into production is critical for security. I think the best way to keep these vulnerabilities in check is with automated web app security testing.

Future 

The future of our business depends on the decisions that we make today. Every business aspires to achieve sustainable and consistent growth for the organization. However, security issues pose a serious challenge to this growth. They can disrupt business operations and affect new contracts. Therefore, web app and API security testing is crucial to ensure smooth operations and continuous growth of our business. 

Conclusion 

With my 24 years of experience in transforming client relationships, I have realized that the client needs of a software partner have evolved. Not only do they want everything at the speed of now, but they strongly exhibit an inclination towards connected and secured systems.  Securing your web apps and APIs offers many advantages, including improved customer trust, better reputation, and more. These are some crucial parameters for the growth and future of our organizations.  

However, when it comes to evaluating ROI from web apps and API security, the parameters are hard to define. Further, quantifying it is also a nuanced endeavor because it doesn’t fit into the traditional financial metrics.  

As a strategic investment, API and web application security transcends monetary gains. The points that I have discussed here surely give you a way to evaluate the ROI in terms of the overall outcomes - ROI in the form of customer trust, resilience, regulatory compliance, and a secure future.