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Failing to test applications poses security threat

Businesses which fail to test non-critical applications for security holes are putting their data at risk from malware and Trojans, it has been claimed.

According to a recent Verzion Business report, network managers are aware that the biggest threat to IT security is through web applications and so they put all of their effort into testing them to ensure there is nothing that hackers can exploit.

However, Peter Tippett, vice president of innovation and technology at the company, told PC World that it is precisely for this reason that many firms are still vulnerable to attack.

He claimed: "The main problem is that we're testing like crazy the critical Web applications, and we're not testing the non-Web applications."

"The bad guys don't know what's critical or not. They go in order of what's easy," he added.

Meanwhile, according to Search Security, Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, which was introduced in the 1990s and is in widespread use, has a number of security flaws which need to be addressed by taking measures like installing anti-virus software.