Intro Products today are complex ecosystems made up of dependencies, APIs, cloud infrastructure, and evolving attack surfaces. Of course, businesses rely on these products to deliver services, enhance customer experiences, and drive revenue.
That’s why keeping these products secure is no longer just an IT or AppSec concern; it’s a product-level responsibility that impacts engineering, security, compliance, and the business as a whole. It’s a critical function, and given its growing scope, which encompasses everything from secure development practices and supply chain integrity to cloud security, leaders focused on securing products are poised to become the next generation of CISOs.
But many teams are still trying to define where security begins and ends, how it integrates with other security disciplines, and who ultimately owns what.
This guide explores the core components of product security, the biggest risks teams face, and how organizations can implement a scalable security framework that keeps up with the speed of development.
Product security vs. application security
Product security and application security are crucial elements of the development process. To understand the key differences between the two, below we briefly explain the main points of product security versus application security to help you effectively apply both concepts. Application security focuses on the protection of software apps. This includes vulnerability prevention, detection, and patching limited within a particular application. App security aims to enhance sensitive data protection, cyberattack prevention, and stable functioning of the solution. In a world where cyber threats are becoming increasingly sophisticated, observability is essential for maintaining a robust security posture. By complementing traditional security practices, observability helps ensure that applications remain secure, resilient, and able to adapt to evolving threats while providing a seamless user experience. Product security, on the other hand, is a wider field. It involves ensuring security at every stage of the development cycle, starting with project design. This means app security falls under product security, which also includes secure coding, proper testing, and regular policy reviews. Integrating cybersecurity risk management in product security ensures that potential risks are continuously evaluated and mitigated, preventing potential threats from escalating into full-blown security breaches. To sum up, both product and application security have a critical role in ensuring stability, functionality, compliance, and protection of the solutions under development and maintenance. However, app security focuses on protecting particular apps and fixing their known vulnerabilities. Product security is more about preventing potential vulnerabilities before malicious actors use them to harm the product and its users.
Product security framework: key points Product security implementation requires building a thoroughly processed set of workflows. You can start by considering the following key elements of the product security framework:
Threat Modeling: Efficient security starts with understanding and outlining threats for your product. By modeling typical threats beforehand, you can better predict risks and vulnerabilities that malicious actors might exploit in particular cases. With this knowledge and understanding, embedding efficient measures to counter threats and ensure product security is much simpler. Secure Design Principles: Secure design is about shifting security left, which means starting to implement protection workflows at the earliest design stages. Secure coding, encryption, enhanced authentication, and other practices fall into this category. Secure Development Lifecycle (SDL): The SDL concept supposes introducing security solutions and workflows into every development stage in addition to the design phase. Security audits, flexible protection adjustments, and secure coding play a major role here. Secure Deployment and Configuration: You can enhance product security at the deployment and maintenance stages with PoLP, system hardening, responsible configuration management, and optimized app and infrastructure protection. Vulnerability Management: This involves regular vulnerability scans and security monitoring throughout the entire supply chain. Therefore, you need appropriate contacts and workflows to efficiently react to new security challenges and vulnerabilities both inside (with the team) and outside (with third-party partners and suppliers) the organization. Incident Response: Security incidents can happen sooner or later; the key here is to be prepared and to know how to react. Consider embedding detailed incident response plans for various disaster scenarios. Such plans should describe the workflows to detect, analyze, mitigate, and avoid further breaches.
Biggest Product Security Vulnerabilities Enterprises Face While we certainly don’t want to name and shame, high-profile security incidents can help us understand the real-world consequences of weak product security. Here are two major examples:
The SolarWinds supply chain attack, which involved a compromised software update infecting thousands of organizations, showed us how attackers can exploit trusted software distribution channels to gain widespread access to sensitive systems. The Log4j vulnerability that forced thousands of organizations around the world to scramble for emergency patches shined a light on how a single flaw in a widely used open-source component can create a global security crisis.
But these are just two types of risks. Let’s explore more, including why they’re so pervasive and how they can be effectively mitigated.
Product Security vs. Application Security: Main Differences Product and application security are often used interchangeably, but they address different aspects of software protection.
Application security tools focus on securing individual applications—whether web, mobile, or desktop—by identifying and fixing vulnerabilities in their code, infrastructure, and runtime environments. In contrast, product-focused security takes a broader approach, securing the entire product ecosystem, including its development lifecycle, supply chain, APIs, cloud environments, and compliance requirements.
Here’s a comparison of the two:
Aspect Product Security Application Security Scope Protects the entire product lifecycle, including development, supply chain, cloud, and deployment. Focuses on securing individual applications at the code and infrastructure level. Focus Areas Covers secure development, CI/CD pipeline security, supply chain security, API protection, and compliance. Primarily focuses on finding and fixing vulnerabilities in application code, runtime, and infrastructure. Common Threats Supply chain attacks, insecure third-party integrations, cloud misconfigurations, API breaches, and compliance violations. SQL injection, XSS, authentication flaws, insecure data storage, and misconfigured web services. Main Product Security Components?
However, steps are being taken by private and public entities to prevent these vulnerabilities from ever entering a device in the first place.
An example of this is through regulation. Executive Order 14208 demands greater transparency into coding practices, open source software (OSS) usage, and other vulnerability management steps. Drilling down into sectors:
Automotive follows WP. 29 R155 & R156, ISO/SAE 21434 Medical device manufacturers follow new FDA standards + Omnibus, IMDF, and CRA in the EU. All place tighter boundaries on what information can be collected, stored, and shared.
Defining product security implications for each industry Now that we understand the importance of Product Security, how can we define it? Let’s break it down:
Cars
Vehicles rely on a highly complex software supply chain that includes both custom and open source software, much of which is structured within the AUTOSAR architecture. In addition, much of this software is capable of remote access, opening it up to potential vulnerabilities. OEMs and their suppliers work tirelessly to scan their code and find any potential for threat-related manipulation. However, with millions of lines of code per vehicle (some more than a modern fighter jet), it’s a daunting task that can’t be achieved with manual combing.
A full product security approach is needed, including threat modeling, vulnerability management, and implementation of a cybersecurity management system (CSMS) to generate reports and comply with regulations. Once these are completed, companies can comply with WP.29 and begin building their product security incident response team (PSIRT).
Medical devices
Patient care relies on accurate, secure, and uninterrupted service from machines that operate in facilities and in patient homes. The safety risk for medical devices range from risk to life or limb to a diminished quality of care, resulting from inaccurate readings.
The high reliance on these devices also makes them a prized target for threat actors to hold a person or facility at ransom, potentially denying them the life-saving services they rely on. The problem becomes increasingly complex when considering that these devices are made up of potentially hundreds of embedded components, each with their own vulnerabilities.
While inaccurate readings may seem like an inconvenience, it can be the difference between life and death considering that today’s connected devices include MRI machines, infusion pumps, insulin pumps, and homecare devices that allow for a higher quality of life with remote monitoring.
Industrial manufacturing and critical infrastructure
Industrial equipment and critical infrastructure have increasingly become software-defined devices. This mixing of potentially legacy devices fixed upon even older non-connected devices leaves these highly prized targets exposed to safety and security concerns which can impact large regions and population centers. These connected products are prone to attacks by malicious state-sponsored groups or prize-seeking hacking groups who can hold entire utilities for ransom.
Product security addresses these by understanding the unique mosaic of tools that operate on both critical infrastructure and manufacturing systems. At the same time, the US government is enhancing its reporting capabilities with CISA’s RVWP initiative and by implementing SBOM & VEX minimums.
Will AppSec go away, then? So if ProdSec is the function that enables Secure by Design, what happens to AppSec? Many believe that it should remain — and become a subset of the broader ProdSec initiative.
David Lindner, CISO for Contrast Security, said AppSec concentrates on securing the code and functionality of a single software application, but “product security takes a holistic view of the entire technology product, considering the broader environment and potential attack vectors that may emerge from the communications between various components.”
EPAM Systems' Rehman said no one should think that ProdSec replaces AppSec. "Rather, it complements it, potentially incorporating it as [an underlying] layer within the security framework,” he said.
Product Security Bad Practices https://www.cisa.gov/resources-tools/resources/product-security-bad-practices
OWASP Product Security Guide https://owasp.org/www-project-product-security-guide/