In today’s fast-paced, efficiency-always world, applications are the backbone of business. From financial transactions to healthcare records and e-commerce platforms, applications power essential services and store vast amounts of sensitive data. This reliance on software makes applications prime targets for cyberattacks, and as threats evolve, organizations must take a proactive approach to secure their software from development through deployment.
Application Security (AppSec) is no longer just a concern for security teams — businesses rely on applications (and their security) to foster revenue growth, improve customer service, create greater efficiencies, and facilitate data sharing and collaboration. These facts make applications business-critical, where a single exploited vulnerability can lead to financial losses, reputational damage, and erosion of customer trust.
In the current era of ubiquitous software development and use, legacy or traditional security tools fail to fit the bill. These tools continue to produce abundant yet irrelevant security findings that lack verifiable context and cannot reliably prioritize vulnerabilities based on individual:
- Risk tolerance
- Environment
- Business needs
This misalignment between tools and people leads to friction between security and development teams and does little to actionably reduce the business risk that could result from exploited software.
Applications and Business As Usual
Smart organizations understand how secure software contributes to business growth. However, understanding the path — the people, processes, and technologies — to secure software isn’t always as clear. Especially for individuals outside the security organization. As a result, AppSec teams often spend large amounts of time explaining security to non-security teammates. Unfortunately, this is also where many AppSec teams fail; as a professional deeply ensconced in the industry, with granular technical knowledge of applications’ inner workings, it can be hard to relate to those who don’t possess the same knowledge or passion. For the record, it’s the same with every business unit in a company. For example, we security practitioners know how important it is for our human resources/people team to research and provide employee benefits. Do we care how, precisely, they research or secure those benefits? Not really. If they’re good at their job, that’s what matters to us. If we receive the benefits, that’s important.
Now, the fine-grained details are important to the people doing that work. But they don’t spend hours upon hours talking about how they do their job, how hard it is, or even what the consequences are if they fail to deliver acceptable benefits. Because they’re focused on outcomes.
There’s a big lesson to be learned from other departments.
Why You Need an AppSec Champion
For efficacy’s sake, it’s generally helpful for AppSec teams to build AppSec champions, non-AppSec business colleagues who can help evangelize what AppSec means to the organization. Not in technical or security terms, but in business terms that anyone can understand.
AppSec champions the crucial bridge between security and development, advocating for best practices while ensuring security does not slow down innovation. They work to embed security seamlessly into the software development lifecycle (SDLC), balancing risk reduction with developer efficiency. Without a dedicated advocate, security can become an afterthought in the development process, leaving applications vulnerable to unnecessary risk. Champions help organizations shift from reactive security measures to proactive, built-in protections that allow security to scale alongside rapid development cycles.
AppSec champions are often senior engineers, DevOps specialists, or security-focused developers who understand both development challenges and security risks. Some advocates originate from security teams and develop a deep understanding of application development, while others have engineering backgrounds and take on security responsibilities as their expertise grows. Regardless of their starting point, these champions act as translators between security and development, advocating for solutions that enhance protection without disrupting delivery.
When evaluating security vendors, AppSec champions focus on solutions that enhance visibility, streamline workflows, and provide actionable insights without burdening developers. Here are the top five things they prioritize when selecting a vendor.
Comprehensive Visibility and Control
AppSec champions frequently look for technologies that offer full visibility into the security posture of all applications, APIs, and dependencies, including custom-built, open-source, and third-party components.
Without a clear view of assets and vulnerabilities, security teams struggle to identify and address risks efficiently. AppSec champions need a solution that maps all dependencies, tracks security posture in real-time, and helps demonstrate measurable progress. A robust inventory ensures they can prioritize risks effectively and prevent threats before they escalate.
Automation and Efficiency
Champions can help advocate for automated tools that supply vulnerability detection, prioritization, and remediation that integrate seamlessly into the CI/CD pipeline without slowing development.
This is extremely important because manual security processes create bottlenecks that delay releases and frustrate developers. Champions seek automation to embed security at every stage of development, ensuring speed without compromising protection. The right tools enable security enforcement without unnecessary friction, allowing teams to focus on delivering secure, high-quality code.
Contextualized and Actionable Insights
Alerts that go beyond generic prioritization and provide clear, actionable insights on the critical 5% of vulnerabilities that pose a real risk — with specific remediation guidance — are the Holy Grail of AppSec.
Why is this so important? Because security teams and developers often drown in alerts, many of which lack meaningful context. AppSec champions can help identify a solution that distinguishes exploitable vulnerabilities from low-risk issues, helping security and Dev focus on what matters most. Tools that provide reachability analysis, business impact assessments, and step-by-step remediation guidance improve efficiency and reduce alert fatigue.
Developer-Friendly Integration and Usability
AppSec champions are the perfect middle ground between security and development. They therefore need security tools that integrate seamlessly into developer workflows, including IDEs, Git repositories, and ticketing systems. The catch? These tools must provide an intuitive user experience or they won’t be used.
Developer resistance to security tools and measures generally stems from friction and inefficiency. Champions look for vendors that embed security directly into existing workflows, ensuring adoption without disrupting productivity. A tool that surfaces security findings within a developer’s preferred environment fosters collaboration and makes secure coding second nature.
Scalability and Support
In an AppSec champion’s view, a vendor must offer solutions that scale with the organization’s growth and provide strong support and training. AppSec champions seek vendors that not only deliver powerful tools but also offer guidance and resources to maximize value over time.
Conclusion
As businesses rely more on software, securing applications is no longer optional — it’s a fundamental requirement that protects revenue, customer trust, and operational stability. Traditional security approaches can’t balance security with rapid development cycles and overwhelm teams with uncontextualized alerts that hinder productivity.
This is where AppSec champions can help strike the right balance.
AppSec champions connect security and development teams to ensure security integrates into the software development lifecycle without disrupting innovation. They advocate for solutions that enhance visibility, automate workflows, and provide actionable insights. These champions help organizations shift from reactive security to proactive, scalable programs.
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