Client Profile
The client is a mid-sized financial services provider operating across three continents, with approximately 2,000 employees and a rapidly expanding cloud-native application portfolio. Facing increased regulatory scrutiny and rising threats to customer data, the client needed to assess and elevate the security posture of over 30 internal and public-facing applications.
Challenges Faced
Key security concerns included:
- Lack of centralized visibility into application vulnerabilities
- Inconsistent secure coding practices across development teams
- Slow remediation cycles due to undefined ownership and triage processes
- Failure to meet OWASP ASVS and PCI DSS application security standards
Solution
COE Security implemented a tailored Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) Engagement, combining:
- Security Posture Baseline Assessment: Identified gaps against industry benchmarks (OWASP, NIST)
- Secure SDLC Integration: Embedded security into CI/CD pipelines using tools like Snyk and GitLab CI
- Application Threat Modeling Workshops: Educated teams on secure design and abuse case identification
- Centralized ASPM Dashboard: Delivered a unified view of risk metrics across all applications
Security Engineering and Application Hardening
- Onboarded 30+ applications into the ASPM platform within 3 weeks
- Integrated SAST and DAST tools with existing DevOps workflows
- Enabled early vulnerability detection during the build phase
- Reduced open critical vulnerabilities by 80% in the first 90 days
- Delivered targeted secure coding sessions for Java, Python, and React teams
Governance and DevSecOps Readiness
- Established an application security steering committee with engineering leads
- Defined clear ownership and SLAs for vulnerability remediation
- Built a maturity roadmap for transitioning from reactive to proactive security
- Implemented policy-driven gates to block insecure code promotions
COE Application Security Posture Service Portfolio
- Application Security Posture Management
- Secure Code Review
- Static & Dynamic Application Security Testing
- DevSecOps Pipeline Integration
- Cloud-Native Application Protection
- API Security Assessment
- Application Threat Modeling
- Security Champions Program
- Compliance Readiness (OWASP, PCI, ISO)
- Continuous Security Metrics and Reporting
Implementation Details
- Deployed COE AppArmor™ platform across dev, test, and prod environments
- Integrated GitHub Actions and Jenkins with SAST/DAST scanners
- Conducted training sessions on threat modeling and secure development
- Developed a knowledge base and remediation playbooks for common CVEs
- Configured automated weekly and executive reports for security KPIs
Results Achieved
- 80% reduction in critical application vulnerabilities within 90 days
- 95% CI/CD pipeline coverage with automated security checks
- Achieved full OWASP ASVS L2 alignment within 6 months
- Enabled a 40% faster response time to newly disclosed CVEs
Client Testimonial
“COE Security gave us the visibility, control, and confidence we needed. Their ASPM program transformed the way our developers think about and build secure applications.”