BENGALURU, INDIA: HP has announced major updates to its application security software as well as a new software-as-a-service offering to help businesses minimize the risk of security breaches due to hacker attacks and safeguard against theft of sensitive customer information.

The new release of HP Application Security Center helps organizations discover, fix and prevent security vulnerabilities in their web applications. New features in the software help bridge the gaps that exist among development, quality assurance, operations and security teams within an IT organization.

This lifecycle approach helps companies comply with government and industry regulations, such as the Federal Information Security Management Act, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, and the European Union Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications.

“While customer-facing applications may be the lifeblood of a business, if they are not secured, they can provide an open door for hackers to a company’s most sensitive data,” said Joseph Feiman, vice president and Gartner fellow.

In a recent survey of 1,000 IT professionals worldwide, 80 percent said that responsibility for application security falls to their security or operations teams, while less than 27 percent said that their development or quality assurance teams share the responsibility.

“Technology underpins our entire business, and our IT organization strives to deliver predictable outcomes,” said Christopher Rence, chief information officer and vice president, Fair Isaac Corporation. ”One of the solutions we rely upon to do this is HP Application Security Center, which provides a comprehensive capability for testing, remediation and prevention throughout our development lifecycle.”

According to the Web Application Security Consortium, an international group of application security experts and industry practitioners, more than 40 percent of web hacking incidents are aimed at stealing personal information. Such “personal records” are easily traded on the Internet, which makes them the easiest virtual commodity to exchange for money.