Application security is becoming harder to manage as attack surfaces grow and multiple security tools are used. Even though many organizations use scanners and dashboards, 73% of security leaders still report incidents caused by unmanaged or simply unknown assets.
This is precisely why application security posture management (ASPM) is getting attention, although it tends to focus more on visibility and automation. Let’s not forget that security posture is also determined by people as much as by technology. The skills developers and architects bring, and the way teams address vulnerabilities, also play a role in securing applications.
What Is Application Security Posture Management?
Application security posture management is about building a continuously updated, unified view of your organization’s application security risks. Instead of treating vulnerabilities as isolated findings, ASPM brings everything together across your entire software development lifecycle (SDLC).
ASPM platforms are the tools that enable this unified approach by integrating security data and processes. Integration capabilities are crucial for connecting ASPM with other security and development tools to provide comprehensive visibility.
However, when taking a people-first approach, a good ASPM strategy should include:
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Code and dependencies: Vulnerabilities hiding in libraries and frameworks.
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CI/CD pipelines: How code moves from development to production.
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Cloud and infrastructure: Configuration, permissions, and services.
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Design and architecture decisions: Choices that impact security from the start.
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People and teams: How developers and engineers apply secure practices daily.
The goal isn’t to collect more data but to understand risk in context. When done well, ASPM teams are better able to see emerging issues and track how security posture changes over time.
Also, it’s important to note that an application security platform focuses more on how applications are designed, developed, and deployed continuously, rather than being just another dashboard that provides visual details.
Why ASPM Is Gaining Momentum
Organizations are turning to ASPM because the traditional approaches aren’t keeping up. Pipelines are getting more complex, and there’s also a lack of cybersecurity talent to keep pace.
These days, a single feature release might involve microservices, cloud functions, third-party libraries, containers, APIs, and ephemeral infrastructure. Trying to keep track of it all manually isn’t possible anymore.
Aside from that, there’s also the challenge of tool overload. Many teams already rely on SAST, DAST, SCA, container scanners, cloud security tools, IaC scanners, and more. Each one produces valuable findings, but collectively, they can create noise. ASPM helps filter that noise into something meaningful by using security automation.
And finally, leadership wants assurance. Boards and executives increasingly expect visibility into a measurable, ongoing security posture aligned with business risk. ASPM has become a way to communicate this, helping organizations address real business risk by aligning their security posture with company objectives.
Where Organizations Struggle With ASPM
Even with security tools in place, many organizations struggle to turn data into meaningful security improvements because the challenges are often operational and people-driven. It needs to be a combination of both, including security findings from multiple tools, and prioritizing security risks.
Developers Lack Secure Coding Practice
If developers don’t really understand where vulnerabilities come from or how to prevent them, the same issues will keep reappearing. Scanning tools can’t replace a lack of secure coding skills, because it then becomes a cycle of detection without proper prevention.
A recent SecureFlag study in the UK reported that 74% of organizations had experienced at least one cybersecurity breach or serious incident in the last year due to insecure coding practices. Secure coding is essential for developing and maintaining secure applications.
Inconsistent Threat Modeling
Many teams only run a threat model during the initial design phase, which is a start, but as new integrations are added and services grow more complex, that model becomes outdated. Without a continuous view of design-level risk, ASPM will always be incomplete.
Ongoing threat modeling is vital for managing application risk, as it helps identify, analyze, and prioritize vulnerabilities and security threats throughout the SDLC.
Overwhelmed by Scanner Results
Pipelines generate findings constantly, and while these alerts are important, they can overwhelm engineers and cause alert fatigue, which is something that enterprises are continuing to struggle with.
If there is no clear prioritization, security issues can sit in backlogs for months, sometimes even years, without remediation. In fact, a study done earlier this year suggests that a vast majority of organizations face vulnerability remediation delays.
Too Much Tool Noise
Multiple tools often report the same issue in different ways, or raise issues that don’t really matter. Teams spend time reconciling results instead of fixing the root causes. ASPM tools aim to unify security data, but unification doesn’t automatically turn into understanding.
Disconnect Between Security Teams and Engineering
Security teams often find problems that developers don’t have the context or skills to fix. The result is frustration and slow remediation, as well as gaps in posture that carry on after every release. Good collaboration between development and security teams is essential to improve overall application security.
These challenges show that ASPM fails when it focuses only on visibility. Without improving the underlying processes, behaviours, and skill sets, security posture cannot meaningfully change.
ASPM Depends on People and Skills
Every application’s security posture depends on the people building it. Tools surface issues, but they don’t explain why vulnerabilities appear or how to prevent them in the future. Targeted training for developers and security teams is needed for them to respond effectively.
This human dimension of ASPM is often overlooked, yet it plays a critical role in whether organizations:
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Prevent vulnerabilities or merely detect them.
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Fix issues quickly or let them sit unresolved.
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Build mature security practices or rely on reactive measures.
Developers need to understand secure design principles and get hands-on experience with real vulnerabilities. Teams need visibility into their own skill limitations and paths to improve them.
Without this, ASPM becomes a passive monitoring exercise rather than an active improvement strategy that leads to enhanced security for the organization.
How SecureFlag Enhances Application Security Posture
SecureFlag reinforces the design, training, and skills-driven elements that determine whether application security posture management leads to more resilient systems.
Instead of replacing an organization’s existing tools, SecureFlag improves areas that tools can’t address on their own, such as human decision-making, consistent secure coding practices, and long-term security strategies that support vulnerability management.
Through flexible integrations, SecureFlag connects with your ASPM and other platforms, providing security insights and training progress across your teams.
1. Integrating Threat Modeling into ASPM With ThreatCanvas
ThreatCanvas, an automated threat modeling solution, brings secure design into the centre of posture management. Instead of running a single threat modeling instance and forgetting about it, teams can maintain a continuous model that changes with the system.
ThreatCanvas supports major risk frameworks like FedRAMP, GDPR, HIPAA, and DORA, making it easier for teams to assess critical risks in a structured way. More importantly, it provides traceability, as every threat, mitigation, assumption, and architectural change is connected.
It gives organizations visibility into how decisions made during the design stage of the SDLC can affect security posture over time, something traditional ASPM tooling often doesn’t capture.
2. Closing the Developer Skill Gap Through Hands-On Learning
SecureFlag’s training platform focuses on skills that directly impact posture, such as how developers write code, make architectural decisions, and approach security in everyday work. Training is designed to integrate security practices easily into the development workflow.
The platform includes:
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Scenario-based secure coding labs.
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Cloud security labs across AWS, Azure, and GCP.
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Specialized training for LLM and agentic AI security.
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Training to secure CI/CD pipelines.
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Role-specific learning paths for developers, DevOps, and QA teams
These labs replicate real systems and real vulnerabilities, helping teams build intuition.
3. Turning Scanner Findings Into Action Through SARIF Integration
ASPM becomes far more effective when findings lead to actual improvement. SecureFlag integrates with application security tools to identify vulnerabilities, provide direct contextual remediation guidance, and practical training.
SecureFlag’s SARIF integration transforms scanner output into personalized training tasks, showing developers exactly how to fix the issues their tools reveal.
This reduces mean time to remediation and cuts down on recurring vulnerabilities, which are two of the most critical metrics organizations use to measure security posture. It brings the process full circle by connecting detection to learning and long-term security.
4. Extending ASPM Through API Integration
SecureFlag’s APIs can integrate easily with ASPM platforms, allowing data to flow both ways. This ensures your ASPM can do more than track technical risk by providing insight into how prepared your teams are to address vulnerabilities.
Through this integration, organizations can see which vulnerabilities your teams are prepared to address, visualize secure coding training progress across departments, and combine multiple data sources to gain a comprehensive view of security posture.
These examples are only the beginning. SecureFlag’s flexible API integrations can be customized to match your organization’s processes.
5. Tracking Meaningful Improvements in Posture
Measure the human side of ASPM with SecureFlag, including:
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Decreases in recurring vulnerability types.
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Secure coding progression over time.
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Improved threat modeling coverage.
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Progression in developer skill levels.
These metrics represent the structural improvements that make ASPM effective, which continue even as the environment changes. Focusing on these areas means organizations can significantly reduce security threats and security vulnerabilities across their applications.
Where Security Meets People and Process
ASPM works best when it captures both technical signals and human capability. Dashboards and scanners provide visibility, but they can’t change an organization’s posture on their own. Meaningful progress comes from secure design practices, developer expertise, and the way teams respond to the issues they find.
SecureFlag helps organizations bring these pieces together, from continuous threat modeling to hands-on training and measurable improvements in secure coding. The platform also supports compliance with industry regulations and security policies, so applications remain safe throughout their lifecycle.
For organizations looking to enhance their application security posture with practical training, integrated threat modeling, and a people-first approach, SecureFlag can help.
