How to Mitigate Threats to a Content Delivery Application

Learn the top 9 ways to stop cybersecurity threats to your content delivery application 

A content delivery application is a software or system that efficiently distributes various digital content to end-users. Its primary purpose is to deliver content, such as web pages, images, videos, audio files, software updates, or any other digital media, to users across different devices and locations. 

A content delivery application leverages a network of servers strategically distributed in various geographical locations, commonly known as content delivery networks (CDNs). These CDNs help optimize the delivery process by storing and caching content in edge servers that are closer to the end-users. Using this process, a content delivery application help reduce latency, improve download speeds, and enhance the overall user experience. 

Let’s take a look at what comprises a content delivery application, and delve into the main cybersecurity threats this application faces. We’ll also offer some advice on what you can do to mitigate the risks to a content delivery application and protect your digital investment.  

Key features and functionalities of a content delivery application  

These may include: 

• Caching
  Storing frequently accessed content in edge servers to reduce server load and minimize latency for subsequent requests. 
• Load balancing
  Distributing incoming content requests across multiple servers to optimize resource utilization and improve responsiveness. 
• Content optimization
  Automatically optimizing content for different devices, formats, and network conditions to ensure fast and efficient delivery. 
• Content security
  Implementing various security measures, such as SSL/TLS encryption and access control, to protect content during transit and prevent unauthorized access. 
• Analytics and reporting
  Providing insights and statistics on content delivery performance, user engagement, and other relevant metrics to help optimize the delivery process. 

Organizations that rely on delivering digital content to their users employ content delivery applications. These applications play a crucial role in ensuring fast, reliable, and scalable content delivery, regardless of the user’s location or the volume of content being served. Of course, as with all network applications, a content delivery application faces a myriad of external threats that can compromise security and result in costly breaches.  

Typical threats posed to a content delivery application 

• Unauthorized access
  Malicious actors use methods like password cracking, phishing, or social engineering to hijack user credentials and gain unauthorized access to accounts, servers, and the application itself. They can also exploit zero-day and existing vulnerabilities that an organization has not patched. A content delivery application can manage a vast amount of user data. These data may include personally identifiable information, payment details, and user profiles and preferences. If attackers manage to compromise the servers or databases that the content delivery application uses, this often leads to unauthorized disclosure or theft of sensitive information. 
• Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks
  Attackers often target content delivery applications with DDoS.  They deploy large number of compromised systems to flood the application’s servers with overwhelming traffic, rendering it inaccessible to legitimate users. 
• Content piracy
  Attackers may attempt to bypass access controls, manipulate DRM systems, or exploit vulnerabilities to illegally copy and distribute copyrighted material from a content delivery application. 
• Malware and malicious content
  Content delivery application users may unknowingly access malware-infected media files or phishing links, which can result in the application inadvertently hosting or delivering malicious files. This sharply elevates the risk of malware infections, data theft, or financial fraud. 
• Third-party APIs
  Content delivery applications often expose APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) to enable integrations with third-party services or client applications. These APIs can be targeted by attackers who attempt to exploit vulnerabilities in the API implementation, leading to unauthorized access, data leaks, or service disruptions. 
• Insider threats
  Employees, contractors, or partners can pose security threats to content delivery applications. Intentional or unintentional actions by insiders may lead to data breaches, unauthorized access, or other security incidents. 
• Content manipulation
  Attackers may attempt to manipulate the content delivered through the application. This could involve injecting malicious code into media files, altering content metadata, or tampering with streaming protocols to deliver counterfeit or altered content. 

Nine ways to stop threats to a content delivery application 

1. Secure coding practices
   Validate and sanitize all user inputs to prevent malicious data from compromising the application’s integrity. Use input validation techniques such as white-listing, regular expressions, and parameterized queries to avoid SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and other injection attacks. 
2. Secure the development lifecycle
   Incorporate security into all stages of the software development lifecycle. Train developers on secure coding practices and establish code review processes to identify and mitigate security risks early in development. 
3. Encryption
   Protect sensitive data at rest by encrypting it using strong encryption algorithms. Safeguard encryption keys and ensure secure key management practices are in place. 
4. Robust access controls
   Assign the minimum necessary permissions to users, processes, and systems. This practice limits the potential damage caused by an attacker or a compromised component. 
5. Secure session management
   Generate secure session tokens and associate them with the user’s session. Use secure session management techniques, such as expiring sessions after a period of inactivity, and securely storing and transmitting session tokens. 
6. Strong authentication mechanisms
   Implement multi-factor authentication (MFA) or password hashing with strong algorithms. Ensure that authorization checks are enforced properly to restrict access to sensitive resources. 
7. Network traffic monitoring
   By analyzing network traffic patterns, you can identify suspicious activities and take appropriate action to prevent security threats such as malware, hacking attempts, unauthorized access, and data breaches in your network.  
8. Regular vulnerability assessments
   Implement comprehensive logging mechanisms to record security-related events and errors. Monitor logs regularly for signs of unauthorized access or suspicious activities. Perform regular security testing, including vulnerability assessments, penetration testing, and code reviews. Utilize automated security tools and consider engaging third-party security experts to identify and address potential vulnerabilities. 
9. User education on security best practices
   Promote a security-aware culture among developers, users, and stakeholders. Conduct security awareness programs, provide training on secure coding practices, and encourage reporting of security incidents and vulnerabilities. Encourage users to create strong passwords and enforce password complexity requirements. Store passwords using strong hashing algorithms with a unique salt for each user. Avoid storing passwords in plaintext or using weak encryption. 

Content delivery application security starts with visibility 

The only way to secure your content delivery application is to accurately record its operation. A deep mapping of assets is important – including your content delivery application – in the environment. As are the continuous behavior analytics needed to enforce automated blocking policies. Best-in-class microsegmentation means lateral movement control across all user activity.

TrueFort Platform provides complete visibility across the full stack of application components, including the application’s underlying processes, services, threads, and the infrastructure it operates on. This approach provides holistic protection and eliminates potential blind spots. 

Five More Best Protection Practices for Content Delivery Applications 

Our own TrueFort Platform provides comprehensive protection for content delivery applications by taking an inside-out approach, focusing on real-time application behavior, rather than just looking at the network data. Our clients come to us for the following reasons: 

1. Application behavior analytics
   It is possible to leverage machine learning to establish a baseline of normal behavior for applications. Any deviations from this baseline, such as unusual data transfer or unexpected communication between components, can trigger alerts for potential threats. This proactive approach allows organizations to detect threats as soon as abnormal behavior is detected. 
2. Visibility and protection across the entire application environment
   As mentioned above, it’s critical to have comprehensive insight into every layer of an application’s infrastructure, extending from its foundational processes, services, and threads to the broader environment within which it operates. This all-encompassing protective approach eradicates potential security oversights, ensuring thorough protection against cybersecurity threats. 
3. Real-time detection and response
   Too slow is too slow… and real-time detection of unauthorized activities or behaviors is critical. Analyzing in real-time makes it possible to halt threats as soon as they emerge before they can cause significant damage. 
4. Zero trust application security
   The least privilege (zero trust) approach ensures that every transaction or communication within the application environment is verified and trusted. This model reduces the attack surface by granting access on a need-to-know basis, and continuously validating trust for prevention of insider threats. It is possible to automate the implementation of least privilege policies, and by ensuring that each component of an application has only the permissions it needs to function, potential pathways for attackers are minimized.  
5. Integration with existing security infrastructure
   Any system that can integrate with existing security systems (EDR agents) – to provide context-rich alerts and reduce false positives – enhances efficiency, reduces overheads, and can boost the accuracy of the overall security posture. 

By employing these strategies, we provide robust security for our clients with content delivery applications, protecting against both known and emerging threats while ensuring optimal application performance.