What to Look for in Application Security Posture Management (ASPM)

Get details on the key capabilities for an ASPM platform. 

Application security posture management, or ASPM, evolved out of shortcomings of application security tools and practices.  

Most application security teams today monitor code via scanning tools — SAST, DAST, SCA, and pen testing. While these scans are a cornerstone of AppSec, they often ignore the infrastructure that delivers your code to production. If attackers compromise a build pipeline or artifact repository, they can insert malicious code into your production environment, effectively bypassing any code-level protections. And this is increasingly the focus of most attackers. 

Attacks on the Software Supply Chain 

Over the past year, several high-profile incidents demonstrated how targeting build systems can be more fruitful than traditional attacks. 

• In one case, a popular continuous integration service was breached through one of its engineers. The attackers gained access to sensitive tokens tied to customers’ build pipelines, allowing them to tamper with build artifacts and snoop on private source code. 

• Not long after, a communication/VoIP software provider faced a similar compromise. Attackers infiltrated an engineer’s environment and manipulated the update process, distributing malicious code to unsuspecting customers downstream. 

These incidents prove that no matter how well you secure your production application, if the pipeline is compromised, malicious code can reach production through seemingly “trusted” updates. 

Vulnerabilities Are Everywhere 

Attacks don’t just exploit flaws within source code. The systems and services underpinning modern development are equally important. Organizations often discover that misconfigured artifact registries or open container image repositories were accessible to anyone with the URL. Attackers (or even casual passersby) can find credentials and outdated dependencies, using them as steppingstones for deeper infiltrations. 

And it’s not only misconfigurations that pose a threat. With microservices, ephemeral builds, cloud-hosted CI/CD, and distributed teams, complexity skyrockets. All it takes is a single overlooked environment variable, a secret token mistakenly logged in a job output, or outdated credentials left in a code repository for an attacker to gain a foothold. 

Why the Industry Struggles to Close These Gaps 

There’s a gap between how attackers operate, and how AppSec tools are used. This gap exists for several reasons, including: 

Focus on Code-Level Scanning 

The AppSec industry’s historical emphasis on finding coding flaws has yielded powerful tools for SQL injection or cross-site scripting. However, these solutions rarely provide comprehensive visibility into SCM, CI/CD, and other DevOps platforms. 

Siloed Security Responsibilities 

Different teams often own different pieces of the puzzle. Infrastructure security, application security, DevOps, and cloud security can all operate independently. This fragmentation prevents a unified view of risks across the entire pipeline. 

Limited Resources and Expertise 

Supply chains can involve an endless mix of containers, orchestration platforms, package registries, and cloud services. Finding talent knowledgeable in all these areas is challenging, and coverage often ends up patchy. 

Evolving Threats 

Attackers have discovered that compromising the pipeline can yield bigger payoffs than attacking a single production instance. Supply chain attacks are evolving quickly, and defenders are often racing to keep up.

Enter ASPM: Application Security Posture Management 

Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) arose in response to these modern challenges. ASPM helps organizations gain continuous visibility into every stage of the application lifecycle, from code commit to deployment in production. By unifying the results of multiple AppSec tools and scanning the broader software “factory,” ASPM offers a more holistic approach to application security. 

However, a critical point is that not all ASPM solutions are created equal. Many tools still focus only on application runtime or code scans, leaving gaps in the pipeline and artifact repositories—the very places where attackers are most likely to strike. 

The Need for Comprehensive Coverage 

A truly effective ASPM solution should do more than just code scanning. At a minimum, it must: 

Inventory All SCMs, CI/CD Tools, and Registries 

You can’t protect what you don’t know exists. Often, partial or manual discovery leaves systems overlooked, effectively invisible to security teams. 

Identify Configuration Risks in the Pipeline 

Even if tools are scanning code for vulnerabilities, misconfigurations—exposed secrets, weak environment variable practices, improper build isolation—can go unnoticed and prove devastating. 

Provide Actionable Insights Across the Entire Factory 

A vague alert about a “pipeline misconfiguration” isn’t enough. Security teams need concrete recommendations, context about potential impact, and clarity on how to address the issue quickly and effectively. 

Key Capabilities for ASPM 

The January 2025 Gartner® Innovation Insight: Application Security Posture Management report highlights several core features that an ASPM solution should include. According to Gartner, an ASPM platform should provide: 

“Enhanced coverage 

Testing orchestration 

Correlation 

Prioritization and triage 

Root cause identification 

Remediation 

Owner identification 

Risk indicator” 

Based on my conversations with security teams struggling with AppSec in the past several years, I believe this list of core features will address most, if not all, the primary application security pains facing teams today. For example: 

Enhanced Coverage 

Beyond source code, ASPM solutions must protect the tools and pathways code travels through before becoming a finished product. Attackers understand these weak points, so you need coverage at every step.

Testing Orchestration 

Modern AppSec often relies on multiple scanning tools owned by different teams. ASPM orchestrates these tests and consolidates findings, which is especially crucial for compliance efforts. 

Correlation 

When code, cloud, and container security are siloed, it’s easy to lose context. ASPM correlates vulnerabilities from different tools and environments so you can see the bigger picture. 

Prioritization and Triage 

Huge volumes of security findings come from scanning tools daily. ASPM helps teams prioritize fixes based on real business impact, so you aren’t chasing every high CVSS score in a low-value app. 

Root Cause Identification 

Many vulnerabilities share a single underlying cause—a stale library, poor build process, or a misconfigured container. By identifying this root cause, you can remediate multiple issues with one fix.

Remediation 

ASPM streamlines and even automates remediation tasks. The time and money saved by resolving security problems at scale rather than one-by-one is often substantial. 

Owner Identification 

Tracking down which developer or team is responsible for a particular fix can be time-consuming. ASPM automates this process, eliminating bottlenecks in remediation. 

Risk Indicator 

Think of this as a quick “scorecard” view. It shows which applications or pipelines are most at risk and deserve immediate attention, making program-wide reporting and decision-making easier. 

Why ASPM Is the Way Forward 

Application security is at a crossroads. We’ve historically leaned on scanning tools, but scanning alone doesn’t address the vast, dynamic environment that builds and delivers code. Without visibility into every corner of the software factory, from SCM to CI/CD to artifact storage, security teams are effectively guarding the front door while leaving side entrances and back windows wide open. 

ASPM corrals the chaos by unifying security tasks into one platform that scales with development, correlates results across different scanning tools, and provides a clear, actionable view of your entire application ecosystem. By doing so, it addresses some of the biggest pain points in AppSec: 

Reducing Security Debt

Automated remediation and root-cause analysis help you fix multiple vulnerabilities at once. 

Eliminating Silos

Teams across DevOps, AppSec, and cloud security see the same data, reducing miscommunication and confusion. 

Focusing on What Matters

When you have a clear, correlated view of vulnerabilities—and can assign ownership quickly—you spend less time on administrative tasks and more time actually securing your environment.

At Legit, We’re Committed to ASPM Innovation 

Here at Legit, we’re proud to be recognized as a Representative Vendor in the January 2025 Gartner® Innovation Insight: Application Security Posture Management report. 

Our customers are saving time and money by centralizing AppSec functions under one roof, rather than juggling scattered tools and manual processes.  

We like to say: “Don’t install security cameras before you know the layout of the house.” If you’re investing in multiple security scanners and tools, make sure you also have the comprehensive visibility, correlation, and orchestration that ASPM offers. Otherwise, you’re generating a lot of noisy alerts without truly reducing risk—or worse, missing key entry points entirely. 

To learn more about ASPM, its core features, and the representative providers, download the Gartner January 2025 Innovation Insight: Application Security Posture Management report. In our view, it’s an excellent resource for understanding how ASPM can transform your AppSec program and address the hidden vulnerabilities lurking in your software factory.

Final Thoughts 

Most breaches in application security happen not because of one coding flaw, but because of overlooked gaps in the broader software factory or a toxic combination of multiple flaws. While ASPM has emerged as a powerful solution to unify application security practices, many tools still fall short by failing to address all those hidden spots—like build pipelines and artifact registries—that attackers love to exploit. 

Securing your applications today means securing everything that touches them: from the code itself to the systems that build, deliver, and store that code along the way. If your current AppSec approach isn’t giving you visibility and control over each of these areas, it’s time to step up to a truly holistic ASPM solution.  

We’d love to show you our powerful ASPM platform; you can schedule a demo here.  

Gartner, Innovation Insight: Application Security Posture Management, By Giles Williams, Aaron Lord, Dionisio Zumerle, 9 January 2025 

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