Network Security vs. Application Security: Which One is Right for You?
Cybercriminals have a variety of ways to attack an organization. So today’s businesses must take the necessary precautions to protect their sensitive data. The best approach to managing these cyber threats is a defense-in-depth strategy.
Two key elements of an enterprise cybersecurity strategy are network and application security. This article explores these two approaches to security and the differing benefits that they offer to a corporate security program and the business as a whole.
Table of Contents
What is Network Security?
Most cyberattacks are network-based, and network security solutions are designed to detect and prevent these threats. Companies commonly deploy a range of network security capabilities to defend their environments, including:
- Firewalls: Firewalls define network boundaries, inspecting and filtering the traffic that crosses them. They can be deployed at the network perimeter or internally to implement network segmentation.
- Intrusion Prevention System (IPS): IPS can be deployed in the network or on individual hosts. They look for signs of malicious activity, such as credential stuffing or distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.
- Virtual Private Networks (VPNs): VPNs create encrypted tunnels between two corporate sites or a remote worker and the company network. This protects traffic traveling over the VPN against eavesdropping or malicious modifications.
- Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA): Like VPNs, ZTNA offers secure access to corporate resources for remote users. However, it also incorporates zero trust access controls and can be used to manage access for on-prem and remote workers.
- Secure Web Gateways (SWGs): SWGs protect workers against online threats, including phishing and malware. They offer capabilities such as URL filtering and enforcement of corporate security policies.
- Secure Access Service Edge (SASE): SASE offers converged networking and security in a cloud-native service. It incorporates many of the functions required for network security, offering improved visibility, usability, and efficiency.
Implementing security at the network layer enables an organization to monitor and secure the traffic of all of its networked assets. This offers greater scalability and more contextual data than endpoint protection or application-specific solutions.
However, the wide variety of potential network security threats poses a significant challenge to organizations looking to manage them. Many organizations have adopted an array of individual tools focused on particular threats; however, this makes network security difficult to monitor and manage.
What is Application Security?
Software vulnerabilities and configuration errors are major targets for cybercriminals and a common source of data breaches. Application security (AppSec) is focused on addressing these security risks at the individual application layer.
A corporate AppSec program should be designed to manage security throughout the entire lifecycle of an application. This includes designing security into an application, testing it throughout the development process, and using vulnerability scanning and threat prevention solutions for production apps.
When deploying AppSec solutions, organizations should pay special attention to web-facing applications. Since these are publicly accessible, they are a common target of attack. Web application and API protection (WAAP) functionality is a good choice for identifying and blocking attempted exploits of these applications.
Network Security vs. Application Security
Both network security and application security protect the organization against cyber threats and are part of a comprehensive defense-in-depth strategy. However, they fulfill unique roles and have several significant differences.
Network-Wide vs. App-Centric Security
One primary difference between network and application security is their scope. A network security solution is designed to protect an organization’s entire network, providing broad protection against security threats.
In contrast, AppSec solutions are deployed to secure a particular application. This sacrifices the broad reach and general protection of network security for more tailored and granular protection, which may catch threats that a more general defense might miss.
Infrastructure vs. Code
Network security is typically implemented as part of an organization’s IT infrastructure. While an organization might use virtual appliances or service-based offerings—such as firewall as a service (FWaaS)—network security is built into its network.
Application security, on the other hand, is often implemented as software designed to protect vulnerable applications. While some infrastructure components — such as a web application firewall (WAF) — offer AppSec capabilities, many other AppSec solutions — such as runtime application self-protection (RASP) — are deployed to protect individual applications.
Preventive vs. Reactive Security
Network and application security solutions can also be more preventative or reactive. In general, network security solutions are fully preventative since they attempt to identify and block potential threats before they reach the target system.
AppSec solutions, on the other hand, can include a mix of preventative and reactive capabilities. AppSec can be highly preventative when applied during the SDLC by preventing vulnerabilities from being deployed as part of production systems. However, it can also be a reactive security solution since tools such as RASP identify and respond to threats based on their impact on a protected application’s behavior.
In-Transit vs. At-Rest Security
Network and application security also differ in where they address threats within the data’s lifecycle. Network security is designed to protect data in transit, identifying potential threats moving across the network.
In contrast, AppSec solutions are focused on a single application or system. They protect data while it’s being stored or used by that application.
Tying Network and Application Security to Business Outcomes
Aside from improving security, deploying network and application security solutions has additional positive impact:
- Enabling digital transformation and cloud adoption: Digital transformation initiatives generally involve using data in new ways or deploying new applications. Network and application security enables this by protecting against data breaches, denial-of-service (DoS) attacks, and other potential threats to an organization’s operations.
- Protecting sensitive data and intellectual property: Network security solutions commonly incorporate data loss prevention (DLP) capabilities that identify and block attempted exfiltration of sensitive data. AppSec also aids data security by preventing the exploitation of vulnerabilities — such as SQL injection — that could result in sensitive data being exposed to an attacker.
- Ensuring compliance with regulations and standards: Regulations and standards commonly mandate the protection of sensitive data and even the use of certain security solutions. Network and application security enhances regulatory compliance by protecting against potential breaches and fulfilling regulatory requirements.
- Reducing risk and building customer trust: Both network and application security solutions have the potential to prevent costly and embarrassing cybersecurity incidents. Investing in security reduces the organization’s risk of suffering a data breach and the resulting negative impacts on customer trust.
- Supporting business continuity and resilience: AppSec and network security solutions both offer protection against threats to business continuity, such as ransomware infections or DoS attacks. Preventing these types of incidents improves operational resiliency and the risk of a business-disrupting event.
Which is Right for Your Business?
Ideally, an organization will deploy a combination of network and application security controls as part of a complementary defense-in-depth strategy. However, if a choice is necessary, keep in mind the key differences between the two solutions and their impact on a solution’s ability to meet the business’s needs.
Proactive Protection Is Essential
Network and application security solutions are both designed to protect the enterprise against attack. In some cases, they may even offer overlapping protection, identifying the same threats in different ways and at different stages of the attack lifecycle. However, they also have fundamental differences that affect their capabilities and the level of protection that they can offer.
Whether an organization chooses a network or application security solution, proactive protection is essential for minimizing its cyber risk. Blocking threats before they reach vulnerable applications eliminates the risk they pose to an organization and its data.
For organizations looking to enhance their network security, SASE is the way to go. Converged network security enhances security visibility and control while also improving efficiency and the user experience. Learn more about upgrading your network security with Cato SASE Cloud today.