Secure Payment Application Posture
Secure Payment Application Posture refers to the overall state of security of all software applications and their supporting infrastructure that handle, process, transmit, or store payment card data. It's a holistic assessment of how well these applications are protected against cyber threats and whether they consistently meet stringent security standards, such as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).
A strong Secure Payment Application Posture encompasses continuous adherence to best practices across the entire lifecycle of an application, from its initial design to its ongoing operation and eventual decommissioning. Key elements include:
Secure by Design Principles: Integrating security into the application's architecture and design. This involves threat modeling, defining secure data flows, and making conscious decisions to minimize the handling and storage of sensitive payment data.
Secure Development Practices (SSDLC): Ensuring all code is written and maintained with security in mind. This includes:
Input Validation and Output Encoding: Rigorously checking all data entering and leaving the application to prevent injection attacks (e.g., SQL injection, XSS).
Error Handling: Implementing robust error handling that does not leak sensitive information to attackers.
Session Management: Securely managing user sessions to prevent hijacking.
API Security: Protecting application programming interfaces (APIs) through strong authentication, authorization, rate limiting, and encryption.
Vulnerability Management: A continuous process of identifying, assessing, and remediating security vulnerabilities within the application code, third-party libraries, and underlying components. This involves regular use of tools like Static Application Security Testing (SAST), Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST), Software Composition Analysis (SCA), and penetration testing.
Data Protection Measures: Implementing strong cryptographic controls for payment data at rest (stored) and in transit (transmitted). This includes proper encryption, tokenization, and strict adherence to data retention policies (e.g., prohibiting the storage of sensitive authentication data like CVV2).
Authentication and Authorization: Enforcing robust mechanisms to verify user identities and control access to payment-related functions and data based on the principle of least privilege. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is often critical for accessing sensitive application areas.
Configuration Hardening: Ensuring the application's environment (web servers, application servers, databases, operating systems) is securely configured, unnecessary services are disabled, default credentials are changed, and security patches are applied promptly.
Logging and Monitoring: Comprehensive logging of all security-relevant events within the payment application, combined with continuous monitoring and alert mechanisms to detect suspicious activities, unauthorized access attempts, or potential breaches.
Incident Response Integration: Having a well-defined plan for how security incidents related to payment applications will be detected, contained, eradicated, recovered from, and post-incident reviewed.
Third-Party Component Security: Managing the security risks introduced by external libraries, frameworks, or services that the payment application relies upon, ensuring their security posture aligns with requirements.
Maintaining a strong Secure Payment Application Posture is not a one-time achievement but an ongoing commitment to cybersecurity best practices. It involves continuously adapting to new threats and vulnerabilities to safeguard sensitive payment card data.
ThreatNG, an all-in-one external attack surface management, digital risk protection, and security ratings solution, can significantly help organizations achieve a strong Secure Payment Application Posture by providing a continuous, attacker-eye view of their external applications and related infrastructure.
External Discovery & Continuous Monitoring
ThreatNG performs purely external, unauthenticated discovery, identifying assets and risks from an attacker's perspective without needing connectors. This is critical for Secure Payment Application Posture because it uncovers unknown or rogue web and mobile applications that might be storing, processing, or transmitting cardholder data (CHD). ThreatNG monitors an organization's external attack surface, digital risk, and security ratings. This ongoing monitoring ensures that new exposures or changes to existing applications that could impact CHD security are immediately identified, providing real-time visibility into the security posture of payment applications.
Examples of ThreatNG's help:
Identifying Undocumented Payment Applications: ThreatNG can discover "Applications Identified" and login pages that the organization may not have formally tracked. If these applications handle CHD, their discovery is vital for Secure Payment Application Posture, ensuring they are inventoried and secured according to PCI DSS Requirement 1.4.2 (maintaining an inventory of system components in scope). ThreatNG's continuous discovery helps ensure all such interfaces are known, tracked, and subject to proper security governance.
Detecting New Exposures from Misconfigurations: Through continuous monitoring, ThreatNG can identify newly exposed services on non-standard ports, as indicated by "Custom Port Scan" results or "Default Port Scan" findings. If these ports are open to services that could lead to the CDE, ThreatNG's immediate identification allows for proactive security measures, preventing potential entry points for attackers. This directly relates to PCI DSS Requirement 1.1.6 (restricting traffic to necessary ports).
ThreatNG performs a variety of external assessments that directly contribute to Secure Payment Application Posture by highlighting potential attack vectors and data leakage points from an external perspective:
Web Application Hijack Susceptibility: ThreatNG analyzes the external attack surface of web applications, including Domain Intelligence, to identify potential entry points for attackers. This directly supports PCI DSS Requirement 6.4.3, which mandates protections for public-facing web applications against attacks.
Example: If ThreatNG identifies "Subdomains Missing Content Security Policy", it signals a vulnerability that attackers could use for Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) or other injection attacks. Proactively addressing this finding, often discovered during vulnerability scans or penetration tests (PCI DSS 11.3.1), directly enhances Secure Payment Application Posture by reducing the web application attack surface.
Mobile App Exposure: ThreatNG evaluates an organization's mobile app exposure through discovery in marketplaces and by analyzing its content for "Access Credentials," "Security Credentials," and "Platform Specific ID.” Mobile applications that handle payments represent critical components.
Example: ThreatNG identifying "Mobile Application Exposure Sensitive Information Found" means sensitive data, such as "Amazon AWS Access Key ID" or "APIs", is present within mobile applications. This finding is critical for Secure Payment Application Posture as it points to potential violations of PCI DSS requirements related to not storing sensitive authentication data after authorization (PCI DSS 3.2) and secure data storage (PCI DSS 3.4).
Cyber Risk Exposure: This assessment considers parameters like certificates, subdomain headers, vulnerabilities, and sensitive ports. It also factors in "Code Secret Exposure," which involves discovering code repositories and investigating their contents for the presence of sensitive data. These are all critical components for understanding external exposure that could lead to CDE compromise through payment applications.
Example: ThreatNG detecting "Invalid Certificates" on a public-facing web application highlights a weakness in cryptographic protection (PCI DSS 4.2.1). Proactively updating these certificates removes an avenue for man-in-the-middle attacks, which can compromise data sent to payment applications.
Example: The discovery of "Private IPs Found" in public DNS reveals internal network architecture. ThreatNG identified this information, which can bypass network segmentation. This makes it a critical component for Secure Payment Application Posture as it exposes systems crucial for protecting cardholder data.
Web Application Firewalls (WAFs) Missing: ThreatNG explicitly identifies when "Web Application Firewalls (WAFs) Missing" on subdomains. The absence of a WAF means public-facing web applications are more exposed to vulnerabilities (PCI DSS 6.6), and intrusion detection/prevention systems may be inadequate (PCI DSS 11.4).
Example: ThreatNG reporting "Web Application Firewalls (WAFs) Missing" on a subdomain directly indicates a critical gap in protecting public-facing web applications (PCI DSS 6.6) and a weakness in intrusion prevention capabilities (PCI DSS 11.4). Proactively deploying a WAF significantly enhances Secure Payment Application Posture.
ThreatNG provides comprehensive reports, including "Prioritized (High, Medium, Low, and Informational)" reports, "Security Ratings", and "External GRC Assessment Mappings (eg, PCI DSS)". These reports are invaluable for informing and driving Secure Payment Application Posture efforts:
The Prioritized reports help organizations focus on the most critical external risks, including those specific to payment applications, allowing them to allocate resources effectively.
External GRC Assessment Mappings allow organizations to see how discovered external risks, like "Subdomains Missing Content Security Policy", align with specific PCI DSS requirements. This helps prioritize remediation efforts for exposures directly impacting CHD security in payment applications.
ThreatNG's core capability is "Continuous Monitoring of external attack surface, digital risk, and security ratings of all organizations". This is fundamental to Secure Payment Application Posture, as the attack surface of these applications is dynamic. New features, integrations, or misconfigurations can introduce vulnerabilities at any time. Continuous monitoring ensures that new potential attack vectors specific to payment applications are identified as soon as they appear, providing real-time awareness and allowing for prompt, proactive security.
ThreatNG's investigation modules provide detailed insights that are critical for identifying and understanding the components of Secure Payment Application Posture that need to be addressed:
Domain Intelligence: This module provides a comprehensive overview of an organization's digital presence, including DNS Intelligence, Email Intelligence, WHOIS Intelligence, and Subdomain Intelligence.
Example: Through Subdomain Intelligence, ThreatNG can identify "APIs on Subdomains". If these APIs handle payment data, their discovery is vital for Secure Payment Application Posture, ensuring they are included in the CDE's security scope and subjected to secure coding practices (PCI DSS 6.5.1).
Example: ThreatNG identifying "Subdomains with No Automatic HTTPS Redirect" or "Subdomains Missing Strict Transport Security (HSTS) Header" indicates data-in-transit vulnerabilities. These issues create a weaker security posture for public-facing payment applications, as unencrypted HTTP connections could expose CHD during transmission (PCI DSS 4.2.1.1).
Sensitive Code Exposure: This module discovers public code repositories and uncovers digital risks, including "Access Credentials" (like API Keys, Access Tokens, and Cloud Credentials) and "Security Credentials" (like Cryptographic Keys).
Example: If ThreatNG finds "Code Secrets Found," such as a "Stripe API key" or "PayPal Braintree Access Token," in a public repository, these represent direct avenues for attack on payment applications. Proactively revoking these credentials and implementing secure development practices reduces a critical attack surface vector (PCI DSS 6.6).
Mobile Application Discovery: ThreatNG discovers mobile apps related to the organization within marketplaces and analyzes their content for sensitive credentials and platform-specific identifiers.
Example: ThreatNG identifying "Access Credentials" like "Stripe API Key" or "PayPal Braintree Access Token" directly within a discovered mobile app signals a critical exposure. Proactively addressing these findings enhances Secure Payment Application Posture and helps meet PCI DSS 3.2 (not storing sensitive authentication data).
Intelligence Repositories (DarCache)
ThreatNG's continuously updated intelligence repositories provide vital context for informing Secure Payment Application Posture efforts by providing threat context and vulnerability details.
Vulnerabilities (DarCache Vulnerability): This includes NVD (DarCache NVD), EPSS (DarCache EPSS), KEV (DarCache KEV), and Verified Proof-of-Concept (PoC) Exploits (DarCache eXploit) .
Example: "DarCache KEV" identifies "Vulnerabilities actively exploiting in the wild". If ThreatNG detects a public-facing payment application with a KEV vulnerability, proactively patching this immediately reduces a critical part of the attack surface (PCI DSS 6.2.3). "DarCache eXploit" provides direct links to PoC exploits, enabling security teams to reproduce vulnerabilities and understand their real-world impact to develop effective mitigation strategies, enhancing Secure Payment Application Posture.
Dark Web (DarCache Dark Web): This includes "Compromised Credentials (DarCache Rupture)" and "Ransomware Groups and Activities (DarCache Ransomware)".
Example: "DarCache Rupture" (Compromised Credentials) identifies leaked usernames and passwords. If these credentials are for a public-facing payment application, proactively forcing password resets and enforcing MFA reduces the attack surface by negating the value of these leaked credentials (PCI DSS 8.3.1).
Working with Complementary Solutions
ThreatNG's capabilities create powerful synergies when combined with other cybersecurity solutions, significantly enhancing an organization's efforts to achieve Secure Payment Application Posture.
Web Application Firewalls (WAFs): ThreatNG's assessments related to web application security, such as identifying "Subdomains Missing Content Security Policy" or "Subdomains Missing X-Content-Type,” provide actionable intelligence for WAF configuration.
Example: If ThreatNG flags missing security headers on a public-facing payment application, this insight can be pushed to a WAF to implement those headers or to block traffic attempting to exploit such weaknesses. This combined approach strengthens application security, serving as a proactive layer of defense for PCI DSS 6.6 (secure web applications).
Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) / Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Tools: ThreatNG's external discovery of payment applications and its identification of "Code Secret Exposure" or "Errors on Subdomains" provide valuable context for DAST/SAST tools.
Example: When ThreatNG identifies an "API on Subdomains" or "Assets with PHP" that are part of a payment application, this discovery can trigger more granular DAST or SAST scans on these components. This ensures a deeper analysis of the application's code and runtime behavior, helping to find vulnerabilities that impact PCI DSS 6.5.1 (secure coding practices).
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Systems: ThreatNG's findings from its various assessment modules related to public-facing payment applications can be integrated into a SIEM.
Example: Details about "Admin Page References" or "Custom Port Scan" results, revealing unexpected open ports on external interfaces, can be fed into the SIEM. The SIEM can then correlate these external insights with internal application logs (PCI DSS 10.2.1) to detect suspicious access attempts or attacks targeting the payment application, supporting PCI DSS 10.6.1 (monitoring and responding to security alerts).
Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) / Edge Security Platforms: ThreatNG's identification of issues like "Subdomains with No Automatic HTTPS Redirect" or "Subdomains Missing Strict Transport Security (HSTS) Header" is critical for edge security.
Example: This insight can be provided to a CDN or edge security platform to enforce HTTPS redirection and HSTS headers at the network edge. This proactively secures data in transit for public-facing payment applications (PCI DSS 4.2.1.1).
