Appsec Intent Fails Without Developer Buy In

For most businesses, establishing clear Application Security (AppSec) objectives is no longer the challenge.

Making security goals part of daily work is where many companies stumble. The result is overlooked risks, expensive fixes, and breaches that harm trust.

Checkmarx’s The Future of AppSec Report 2024 revealed that 92% of organizations had experienced a breach resulting from vulnerabilities in their applications. At the same time, 91% admitted to knowingly releasing applications with known flaws.

IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report 2025 reinforces this reality, reporting that the global average cost of a breach has reached $4.44 million, with phishing and stolen credentials remaining among the most common points of entry.

Bridging this gap requires more than policies on paper. Progress depends on people, processes, and technology working together, supported by clear roles, practical training, and tools that integrate into developer workflows.

This blog explores how organizations can turn AppSec goals into consistent execution. It outlines the common challenges that create gaps in implementation and presents strategies for embedding security into development workflows.

Table of Contents

1. Understanding the AppSec Gap
2. The Real Barriers Holding Back AppSec
3. AppSec Strategies to Turn Intent Into Action
4. The Tools Powering Effective AppSec
5. Best Practices for Stronger AppSec Implementation
6. From Policy to Practice: Making AppSec Stick

Understanding the AppSec Gap

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Application Security (AppSec) intent refers to the policies, standards, and objectives an organization defines to protect its applications. Its purpose is to spell out what security means for the business, assign responsibility, and keep teams aligned with overall goals.

Examples include:

• Defining secure coding standards for developers
• Creating vulnerability management policies
• Meeting compliance requirements such as PCI DSS, GDPR, or HIPAA

What Effective AppSec Implementation Looks Like

AppSec implementation refers to the practical application of these policies in everyday workflows. This means weaving security into the software development lifecycle (SDLC), DevOps workflows, and production systems.

A 2024 arXiv study of small and mid-sized businesses reported that 68% had attempted to adopt DevSecOps, yet only 12% conducted security scans on every code commit. The results show how often well-defined goals fail to become consistent practice.

Examples include:

• Performing threat modeling during the design stage
• Performing automated security checks like IaC scanning, DAST, and SAST
• Updating dependencies and fixing vulnerabilities
• Applying runtime protections in production environments

Why Execution Breaks Down in Practice

Even with well-defined intentions, many organizations struggle to achieve reliable execution. Several common hurdles make it hard to close this gap:

1. Poor Collaboration Between Security and Development: Security goals are often set without much input from developers. That lack of involvement creates misalignment and slows adoption.
2. Limited Secure Coding Knowledge: Many developers lack sufficient training in secure coding. As a result, flaws slip through, or fixes aren’t given the right priority.
3. Resource Constraints: Teams under pressure often cut corners. With limited time, scarce resources, and insufficient security talent, the idea of building protection from the ground up is often abandoned.
4. Cultural Pushback: Security is often overlooked as an afterthought when the primary focus is on rapidly deploying functionality. It is ignored rather than included in the process.
5. Compliance vs. Risk Mitigation: Some organizations focus mainly on ticking compliance boxes rather than addressing real threats. The Checkmarx survey showed that only about 39% of companies reported using core AppSec tools such as SAST, DAST, and SCA.

The Real Barriers Holding Back AppSec

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AppSec frequently breaks when culture, inadequate tools, or skill shortages interfere, even with explicit policies.

Cultural and Organizational Factors

Development teams frequently believe that security hinders rather than strengthens software. The issue arises when the security, development, and QA groups rarely interact. In the end, checks that should run throughout the project are often pushed to the final stages, where they are least effective.

A study on the arXiv examining small and mid-sized businesses found that 38% of respondents cited cultural resistance as the primary reason AppSec practices fail.

Process and Workflow Gaps

Many teams still tack security on at the last step instead of integrating it into their CI/CD setup. When that happens, issues arise late, and fixing them requires significantly more effort. Manual reviews add another layer of trouble.

They slow projects down, and when the deadline is looming, people sometimes skip them. That’s when weak spots slip through and land in production.

Tooling and Technology Limitations

Many teams continue to use tools that are out of step with agile working methods and current designs.

Better solutions are frequently not well incorporated into current workflows, even when they are accessible. Developers become disinterested, and real hazards remain unaddressed if the tools produce a constant stream of false positives or impede development.

The 2025 Application Security Benchmark report from OX Security noted that 95% of security alerts can be safely deprioritized, as most are either duplicates or low risk. This level of noise makes it harder for developers to focus on real issues and undermines confidence in the results, slowing down remediation.

Skills and Knowledge Gap

Plenty of developers never get much training in secure coding, so it’s easy to miss problems or fix them the wrong way. At the same time, security teams often struggle to convey risks in terms that leaders can understand.

That gap makes it more challenging to secure executive backing and the necessary resources to close it. This two-sided knowledge gap prevents AppSec intent from becoming a consistent practice.

AppSec Strategies to Turn Intent Into Action

To close the gap between AppSec goals and actual practice, teams must integrate security into their work, understand how to use it efficiently, and be held accountable through clear checkpoints.

Businesses already employ these tactics frequently, and real-world examples show how effective they are:

Shift-Left Security

Starting security work early in the software lifecycle saves both time and cost. Threat modeling during design provides teams with the opportunity to identify weak points before coding begins. Simple habits, like following the OWASP Top 10, should also be part of routine development work.

The Software Engineering Institute demonstrated the benefits of this approach by incorporating security checks into its CI/CD pipeline before feature development. By treating security as part of the build process from the outset, issues were identified and addressed much earlier.

DevSecOps Integration

DevSecOps integrates security into automated pipelines, enabling testing to occur as code moves through CI/CD. Teams can carry out static and dynamic testing, software composition checks, and secret discovery during the process.

The effort does not stop after release. In production, ongoing monitoring and infrastructure as code (IaC) checks help prevent unsafe configurations from reaching users.

A SaaS provider achieved measurable results through this approach:

• More than 90% reduction in bugs before release
• Downtime cut to under 1% per month
• Security incidents dropped from double digits to just a few per quarter

These outcomes show how automation can enhance both security and delivery performance.

Training and Awareness

Technology alone cannot close the AppSec gap without skilled teams. Developers need targeted training on secure coding, interpreting test results, and addressing common vulnerabilities.

A security champions program can reinforce this effort by assigning developers within each team to act as advocates and provide peer guidance.

Sage, a global enterprise software company, achieved significant results through this model. The company established a network of over 200 security champions. As a result, it cut the average time to fix vulnerabilities by more than 80%.

Collaboration and Communication

To share notes, establish priorities, and maintain project momentum, teams including security, development, and QA must meet often.

Shared KPIs also create accountability, including:

• Average time to remediate vulnerabilities
• Number of issues closed within SLA by severity
• Frequency of pipeline build failures caused by security violations

Teams lessen the possibility of recurring problems by integrating incident lessons into automation, training, and coding.

Metrics and Measurement

Measurement ensures progress is visible and continuous. Organizations should:

• Track open and resolved vulnerabilities by severity
• Monitor remediation timelines to identify bottlenecks
• Review exception requests and false positives to refine automation

Organizations like Sage show that consistent measurement and adjustment lead to stronger outcomes, with security becoming both reliable and fully integrated into delivery goals.

The Tools Powering Effective AppSec

Teams only stick with AppSec goals when the tools fit into their normal work. If a tool slows things down, it is often overlooked. The right ones save time, reduce manual steps, and still keep projects moving.

Automated Security Testing

Automated testing identifies vulnerabilities as code is created and deployed:

• Static Application Security Testing (SAST): Examines binaries or source code to find errors before the code executes.
• Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST): Looks for vulnerabilities in active applications that an attacker could exploit.
• Interactive Application Security Testing (IAST): Observes the application during testing, which facilitates the identification of issues.

When combined, these techniques significantly enhance coverage and reduce the likelihood that large bugs will make it into production.

CI/CD Security

Putting security inside the CI/CD pipeline means it runs along with the release, not after it. Teams might add scans during builds, review code with security in mind, or block a release if a serious flaw is still there.

Monitoring and Incident Response

When an app goes live, the job is not finished. Applications in production require constant oversight. Threats don’t wait, so teams need tools that respond right away.

• One option is Runtime Application Self-Protection (RASP). It sits inside the app and blocks attacks as they happen.
• Another is logging and observability. By tracking traffic and user actions, teams can quickly identify unusual behavior and intervene before it causes damage. Strange activity stands out faster, allowing teams to react before things escalate.

One step alone is not sufficient. However, when combined, they give teams greater visibility and a faster response to issues.

Policy and Governance Platforms

Compliance also needs to be baked into the process. Tools in this area help teams stick to the rules without slowing down development. With policy-as-code, rules can be written, updated, and applied right inside the pipeline. That makes environments more consistent and makes audits easier, since compliance is already built into the workflow.

Best Practices for Stronger AppSec Implementation

Strong AppSec depends on both the tech and the culture around it. Teams need guiding principles that shape how security fits into daily work:

• Make security everyone’s job. It should sit with developers, testers, and operations, not just a small security group.
• Lean on automation. The fewer manual checks, the smoother the process and the easier it is to maintain consistent protection.
• Build skills inside teams. Provide developers with regular training and support from security champions, enabling them to write and maintain secure code effectively.
• Track what matters. Watch remediation times, vulnerability trends, and the accuracy of tools, instead of focusing solely on compliance.
• Encourage a security-first mindset. Teams should feel able to innovate without leaving applications exposed.

From Policy to Practice: Making AppSec Stick

Closing the gap between AppSec intent and actual practice takes more than policy. It calls for early integration, automation where it helps, steady training, teamwork, and regular checks.

Moving forward means setting clear goals, adding security at every stage, and watching progress with useful metrics. Security practices need regular checkups and tweaks.

Application security is integrated into regular software development and operations when handled in this manner.

AppSecEngineer provides teams with practical ways to enhance their security skills through hands-on labs, cloud-based sandboxes, and role-focused training that mirrors real-world development work.

To find out how AppSecEngineer can help your team develop skills and fill security gaps, schedule a demo now!