The post The Fork in the Road: Prioritizing Application Vulnerabilities vs. Runtime Protection appeared first on Waratek.
]]>One camp emphasizes the never-ending identification and prioritization of vulnerabilities for remediation, aiming to fix flaws at the source. The other champions instant application remediation through Runtime Application Self-Protection (RASP) that shields applications in real-time and neutralizes threats as they occur. While both aim for the same ultimate goal – secure applications – their methodologies, strengths, and weaknesses differ significantly.
The road often taken centers around identifying vulnerabilities before an application enters production or before they can be exploited as the app runs. This involves a range of security testing tools, including Static Application Security Testing (SAST), Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST), and Software Composition Analysis (SCA). These tools scan application code, running applications, and their dependencies to uncover potential weaknesses, generating a list of vulnerabilities that need to be addressed.
The crucial next step is prioritization. In the traditional mode, remediation efforts tend to focus on the most critical risks based on factors like severity, exploitability, and business impact. The strength of this approach lies in its active nature.
By identifying and fixing vulnerabilities early in the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), organizations can prevent them from ever being exploited in a production environment. This “shift left” strategy aims to build security into the application from the ground up, reducing the attack surface and minimizing the potential for breaches. Understanding the root cause of vulnerabilities also allows development teams to learn from past mistakes and write more secure code in the future.
However, this approach also faces significant challenges. The sheer volume of vulnerabilities identified by scanning tools can be overwhelming, complicating the prioritization decision.
Remediation can be time-consuming and resource-intensive, too, often requiring significant code changes and retesting. Even with rigorous testing, it’s virtually impossible to identify every single vulnerability. New threats and zero-day exploits can emerge after deployment, rendering previously secure applications vulnerable.
In contrast to the traditional find & fix approach to vulnerability remediation, RASP takes a different tack. Instead of focusing solely on pre-production vulnerability identification and remediation, RASP embeds security directly within a running application.
RASP agents monitor application behavior in real-time, analyzing traffic, user input, and system interactions to detect and block malicious activity. When a potential attack is detected, RASP can take immediate action, such as blocking the request, terminating the session, as well as virtually patching a vulnerability in real-time without requiring code changes.
The value of RASP lies in its ability to provide immediate protection against both known and unknown threats. It acts as a last line of defense, safeguarding applications even if vulnerabilities slip through pre-production testing or when zero-day exploits emerge.
Instant application remediation capabilities, while still evolving, offer the promise of automatically mitigating certain types of attacks without requiring manual intervention or downtime. This can be particularly valuable for legacy applications where code changes are difficult, risky, or both.
Waratek Secure takes a new approach to providing runtime protection for applications today. Central to Waratek’s approach is the utilization of non-heuristic detection techniques for code-injection attacks based on two features: data tainting & syntax analysis.
Waratek deliberately chose not to use existing heuristics-based techniques for detecting code-injection attacks as used by Web Application Firewalls (WAFs), such as pattern matching, regular expressions, exploit signatures, blacklists, or whitelists. This decision avoids the inaccuracies, false-positives, continuous tuning, and performance degradation that plague heuristic-based approaches.
Data tainting (also known as taint checking) marks as “untrusted” all user-input data to a Java app (like HTTP request parameters). This aids in distinguishing between developer-written code and user-inputted data.
Once data is tainted, Waratek performs syntax analysis to identify if the user-input data is a code-injection exploit. For example, by intercepting SQL statements before they reach the database, Waratek can detect SQL injection attacks according to the formal grammar of the SQL dialect of the application’s database.
By performing attack analysis in this manner, Waratek avoids all the false-positive risks of heuristic-based approaches, resulting in the following benefits.
So, which approach to prioritization is better – traditional or RASP-based? The reality is that the two approaches are complementary and address different stages of the application security lifecycle.
Prioritizing and remediating vulnerabilities in pre-production helps to reduce the attack surface from the start, while RASP provides a critical safety net for in-production apps. Waratek Secure offers immediate protection against threats that were missed during testing or those that emerge after deployment.
Instead of viewing these as mutually exclusive options, security teams should strive for a holistic approach that leverages the strengths of both. The fork in the road doesn’t always require a single path; often, the most secure journey involves traveling both.
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]]>The post Waratek Secure and Oracle Patch Updates: Securing Mission Critical Apps in Minutes appeared first on Waratek.
]]>Oracle patches are like replacing a broken door into a building, while Waratek virtual patching is like having a security guard that prevents anyone from entering the door.
Oracle critical patch updates provide a long-term fix for known vulnerabilities by addressing the root cause of flaws in an application’s code. Waratek virtual patching offers immediate and ongoing protection at runtime by preventing the exploitation of known vulnerabilities and oftentimes Zero Day vulnerabilities, complementing the traditional patching process.
Both – Oracle CPUs and Waratek Secure – are essential for a strong security posture.
Ready to see Waratek Secure in action? Explore our platform today to learn how you can transform your organization’s approach to Java security
Based in Dublin, Ireland, Waratek is the leader in the next significant shift toward active security platforms. Organizations around the world rely on our solutions to prescriptively secure their business-critical applications. Rather than focusing on lagging indicators like network traffic and regex, we fix vulnerabilities in the code while your applications run. Security professionals and developers love our solutions for the low friction and ease of scalability.
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]]>The post Are Cloud Native and Runtime Protection Security a Perfect Match? appeared first on Waratek.
]]>CNAPP is an all-in-one cloud security solution that combines multiple security tools, including Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM), Cloud Workload Protection Platform (CWPP), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM), and sometimes RASP.
RASP enhances CNAPP by offering:
Waratek’s RASP solution identifies, mitigates, and reports threats in real-time. Waratek Secure offers deep visibility and control over Java applications, blocking threats such as data exfiltration, insider threats, external attacks, and malware. With zero app downtime required to deploy immutable rules or remediate CVEs, Waratek’s protection against known and Zero Day exploits and virtual patching capabilities ensure that your applications remain secure without ever having to stop your system for updates.
Waratek’s Software-defined RASP platform provides holistic, application-layer protection that works seamlessly across environments to secure your applications at runtime. With the power to virtually patch vulnerabilities in real-time, prevent exploits, and enhance overall security without impacting performance, Waratek’s solutions are built for today’s dynamic threat landscape.
Secure’s patented runtime tainting feature tracks data flows throughout all layers of the application stack. Combined with a powerful semantic and syntactic analysis engine, Waratek analyzes the data, code structure, and the app’s runtime behavior to deliver continuous protection against known and unknown security threats with pinpoint accuracy.
By monitoring and analyzing all inputs to an application, Secure distinguishes between trusted and untrusted data. This enables Waratek to provide runtime protection that is both active and retrospective against all OWASP Top 10 security risks, including SQL injection (SQLi), command injection, cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks, and insecure deserialization before they can cause harm.
You can’t defend what you can’t detect. Waratek Secure provides unparalleled visibility into your application’s runtime environment, automatically identifying, classifying, and neutralizing threats in real-time.
With no performance hit, Waratek provides comprehensive protection against advanced attacks, including the OWASP Top 10, injection vulnerabilities, remote code execution, privilege escalation, and zero-day vulnerabilities. Secure monitors all phases of the threat lifecycle—blocking infiltration, command and control, lateral movement, and data exfiltration—while providing instant insight into an attack, enabling swift remediation.
Ready to see Waratek Secure in action? Explore our platform today to learn how you can transform your organization’s approach to Java security.
Based in Dublin, Ireland, Waratek is an award winning leader in the next significant shift toward active security platforms. Organizations around the world rely on our solutions to prescriptively secure their business-critical applications. Rather than focusing on lagging indicators like network traffic and regex, we fix vulnerabilities in the code while your applications run. Security professionals and developers love our solutions for the low friction and ease of scalability.
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]]>The post Drowning in CVEs: Navigating the Tsunami of Vulnerabilities appeared first on Waratek.
]]>Security teams often find themselves drowning in a sea of alerts, struggling to discern critical threats from mere ripples. This deluge not only strains resources but also increases the risk of overlooking truly dangerous weaknesses. To effectively manage this complexity, teams must not only prioritize effectively but also understand the distinct nature of network, hardware, and application vulnerabilities.
The challenge of vulnerability overload stems from the constant discovery of new flaws, the increasing complexity of systems, and the proliferation of security scanning tools. These tools, while essential for identifying potential weaknesses, often generate a high volume of findings across different layers, making it difficult to focus remediation efforts where they matter most.
Without a clear strategy for prioritization and a fundamental understanding of the different vulnerability types, security teams risk becoming paralyzed by the sheer volume of data.
To effectively prioritize the remediation of flaws, teams must first differentiate between the types of vulnerabilities encountered:
How can security teams navigate this overwhelming landscape and regain control? The key lies in effective prioritization. Instead of treating every vulnerability as an equally urgent alarm, organizations need to implement a systemic approach to identifying and addressing the most critical threats first. Here are several steps to prioritize vulnerability remediation:
The number of CVEs has grown every year but one in the past decade – from 6,494 to 40,309 in ten years. That means navigating the vulnerability landscape requires a strategic and layered approach. By understanding the distinct characteristics of network, hardware, and application vulnerabilities while implementing a robust prioritization framework, organizations can move beyond the overwhelming noise and focus their efforts on mitigating the risks that truly matter.
This targeted approach not only optimizes security resources but also significantly strengthens the overall security posture in an increasingly complex digital landscape.
Ready to see Waratek Secure in action? Explore our platform today to learn how you can transform your organization’s approach to Java security.
Based in Dublin, Ireland, Waratek is an award winning leader in the next significant shift toward active security platforms. Organizations around the world rely on our solutions to prescriptively secure their business-critical applications. Rather than focusing on lagging indicators like network traffic and regex, we fix vulnerabilities in the code while your applications run. Security professionals and developers love our solutions for the low friction and ease of scalability.
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]]>The post The Dynamic Duo: How RASP and WAF Unite Against Application Exploits appeared first on Waratek.
]]>Think of a WAF as the vigilant border patrol for your web application. Deployed in front of the application, it acts as a gatekeeper, meticulously inspecting incoming HTTP/HTTPS traffic for known malicious patterns and suspicious anomalies. It operates by analyzing request headers, body, and URLs against a set of predefined rules and signatures. This allows the WAF to identify and block common attacks like SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and directory traversal attempts before they even reach the application code.
The strength of a WAF lies in its ability to provide an immediate and broad layer of defense. It can effectively filter out a significant volume of malicious traffic, reducing the attack surface and preventing many common exploits. But, a WAF operates outside the app and lacks deep contextual understanding of the application’s internal workings. This means it can struggle with sophisticated or zero-day attacks that don’t match known signatures. It may also generate false positives, blocking legitimate traffic if its rules are too strict or allow vulnerable code to be exploited if the rules are too lax.
This is where RASP steps in as the internal security agent. Unlike the WAF’s perimeter defense, RASP is embedded directly within the application’s runtime environment. It monitors the application’s behavior from the inside, analyzing function calls, data flow, and configurations in real-time. This deep visibility allows RASP to detect and prevent attacks by understanding the context of each request and identifying malicious activity based on how the application is actually being used.
RASP excels at identifying and mitigating attacks that bypass traditional perimeter defenses like SQL injection attempts, even if they are cleverly disguised to evade WAF signatures. RASP prevents exploitation of zero-day vulnerabilities, too, by identifying anomalous application behavior that deviates from its expected execution. And, RASP provides granular control over application behavior, preventing actions like unauthorized file access or command execution.
The true power emerges when RASP and WAF work in tandem. The WAF acts as the first line of defense and filtering known threats with negligible impact on the application’s performance overhead. This allows RASP to focus on more sophisticated and targeted attacks that manage to slip through the perimeter.
By combining the proactive perimeter defense of a WAF with the deep, contextual awareness of RASP, security teams can significantly strengthen their application security posture. This layered approach provides comprehensive protection against a wider range of threats, reduces the risk of successful application-based exploits, and ultimately helps manage the ever-evolving challenges of securing modern web applications. The dynamic duo of RASP and WAF is no longer a luxury but a necessity for organizations serious about protecting their valuable digital assets.
Not all RASP tools provide true runtime protection. Many solutions on the market rely on generic behavioral monitoring. These tools observe API calls and database queries and block or alert on specific patterns of behavior that match known attack signatures.
Waratek Secure is the only RASP solution that enables security teams to define security policies as code. By operating directly within the Java virtual machine (JVM) , organizations can create highly specific security rules that enforce protection and remediate vulnerable code at runtime without modifying the original application code while the app runs – i.e. no downtime or tuning required. This Software Defined RASP allows:
While WAFs remain a foundational tool for securing web applications, Waratek Secure offers advanced capabilities that extend protection deep into the Java runtime. This blend of external and internal security ensures that Java applications are safeguarded against both known and Zero Day threats, from the perimeter to the core.
Embrace the best of both worlds: allow WAFs to guard your gates and let Waratek fortify your Java applications from within, for a truly resilient security posture.
Ready to see Waratek Secure in action? Explore our platform today and discover how Waratek can work with a WAF to transform your organization’s approach to Java security.
Based in Dublin, Ireland, Waratek is the leader in the next significant shift toward active security platforms. Organizations around the world rely on our solutions to prescriptively secure their business-critical applications. Rather than focusing on lagging indicators like network traffic and regex, we fix vulnerabilities in the code while your applications run. Security professionals and developers love our solutions for the low friction and ease of scalability.
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]]>The post Schrödinger’s Vulnerability: Are Your Java Apps Secure or Not? appeared first on Waratek.
]]>In quantum physics, Schrödinger’s Cat is a thought experiment designed to illustrate uncertainty. A cat in a sealed box may be either alive or dead. Until you open the box, it exists in a state of both. It’s a paradox of perception: the truth is unknowable until observed.
Security teams, knowingly or not, live inside a version of that box every day. A critical vulnerability in your application might be exploitable, or it might not. There might be an exploit quietly sitting in a third-party library, a deserialization flaw in an old API, or a critical CVE your vendor hasn’t patched yet. You may be under attack right now. Or not. Without full visibility into what’s happening inside your systems, you’re operating in a state of security by assumption.
And assumptions don’t hold up to attackers or compliance auditors.
In the realm of cybersecurity, you can never assume you’re safe. Until you have evidence that you’re safe, you are vulnerable. Even if no active vulnerability is present in your system, lack of visibility in itself equates to vulnerability.
Traditional security measures (firewalls, periodic scans, and patch management) provide a false sense of security by offering fragmented visibility. They often fail to account for the complexities of modern applications, especially those built on legacy Java frameworks.
A WAF can tell you what reached your perimeter, but offers no insight into what happened once traffic entered the application. SAST tools analyze your proprietary code, but given today’s dependency-heavy Java applications, that may only account for a third of your actual production environment. SIEM platforms rely on proper log ingestion and known patterns to catch issues, while patching programs depend on vendor cooperation and risk introducing downtime in legacy systems.
Additionally, they can provide a deluge of false positives, which further clouds the seriousness of each individual vulnerability and makes it more difficult to respond appropriately when critical vulnerabilities are found.
Each of these tools has its place, but collectively, they leave substantial blind spots. And what you can’t see, you can’t secure.
A vulnerability doesn’t lose its danger simply because you’re unaware of it. In fact, the further out of your sight it is, the easier it is for attackers to infiltrate and move laterally without being detected.
Java has the highest percentage of ignored vulnerabilities across ecosystems, with more than 42.5% going unaddressed. This is an industry-wide problem. 74% of modern codebases contain high-risk open source vulnerabilities, and 91% rely on components that are ten or more versions out of date.
How does this happen? Well, zero-day exploits often remain undetected because signature-based tools can’t identify what they haven’t seen before. Third-party Java applications, commonplace in ERP, inventory, and logistics systems, often operate as black boxes, completely opaque to internal security tooling. Shadow IT adds another layer of uncertainty, where internal teams spin up tools or services without going through security reviews. And then there are the aging legacy Java apps, still running in production because updating them would break something critical.
Attackers rely on these security grey areas. They know most organizations are only monitoring what they built, which is usually only one part of their total attack surface.
If an attacker doesn’t expose your assumptions, a compliance audit will.
Modern regulatory frameworks require more than good intentions. PCI DSS 4.0 mandates timely mitigation or the use of compensating controls that are equivalent in strength to an actual patch. HIPAA demands safeguards that are “reasonable and appropriate,” with verifiable logging. GDPR and CCPA impose fines for preventable breaches, including those caused by third-party dependencies.
Partial visibility doesn’t pass audits. It doesn’t matter whether the vulnerability came from your code, a vendor’s module, or an old library. What matters is that it was in production, and you didn’t have an answer for it. Failing to pass a compliance audit can mean halting operations or even paying fines.
Java security teams can’t afford to gamble on “probably secure.” At some point, someone will open the box. And it’s far better for everyone if it’s you.
This is where Waratek offers something different. Rather than adding another alerting layer, Waratek acts as a runtime enforcer. It doesn’t rely on CVE databases or known signatures. It doesn’t care whether the code is homegrown or vendor-supplied. Instead, it evaluates real-time behavior inside the Java Virtual Machine, watching for risky patterns and intercepting threats before they can execute.
This model solves three persistent problems. First, Waratek doesn’t depend on known patterns to stop an attack. It can detect and prevent zero-days based on what the code tries to do rather than where it came from. Second, because it operates inside the runtime itself, it isn’t limited to proprietary code or endpoints. And third, it protects instantly with virtual patching, applying mitigations without code changes or redeployments.
Waratek’s model is both technically effective and operationally defensible. Each virtual patch is logged in Common Event Format (CEF), complete with CVE, CWE, and attack vector metadata. Security teams gain an auditable trail showing exactly what threat was mitigated, when it occurred, and how it was handled.
That kind of visibility translates directly into compliance confidence. GRC teams don’t need to guess. Auditors don’t need to assume. And security leaders no longer have to accept hope as the default strategy for protecting their Java environments.
You can’t protect what you can’t see. And you can’t afford to think you’re secure until the day something proves otherwise.
In security, uncertainty is the most dangerous vulnerability of all. With Waratek, the box is open, the runtime is visible and the threats are neutralized.
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]]>The post Waratek Wins Global InfoSec Award from Cyber Defense Magazine appeared first on Waratek.
]]>SAN FRANCISCO — APRIL 28, 2025 – Waratek is proud to announce it has been named the winner of the prestigious “Publisher’s Choice” award in the Application Security category from Cyber Defense Magazine (CDM), the industry’s leading electronic information security magazine.
“We’re thrilled to receive one of the most prestigious and coveted cybersecurity awards from Cyber Defense Magazine,” said Doug Ennis, CEO of Waratek. “We knew the competition would be tough, and with judges who are respected infosec experts from around the globe, we couldn’t be more honored by this recognition.”
“Waratek embodies three major qualities we judges seek in winners: understanding tomorrow’s threats today, providing cost-effective solutions, and innovating in unexpected ways that help mitigate cyber risk and stay ahead of the next breach,” said Gary S. Miliefsky, Publisher of Cyber Defense Magazine.
Waratek joins an elite group of innovative cybersecurity companies featured here: https://cyberdefenseawards.com/global-infosec-awards-for-2025-winners-by-company/
ABOUT WARATEK
Waratek offers a Java security platform that helps businesses protect applications from known and unknown threats using advanced Software Defined Runtime Application Self-Protection (RASP) capabilities that enable real-time defense and remediation without requiring application code changes. Waratek specializes in defending against zero-day threats that often evade traditional signature-based detection methods and remediating known vulnerabilities with no application downtime required. Its unique ability to intercept and neutralize malicious behaviors—such as unauthorized file access, code injection attempts, and insecure deserialization—has made Waratek a trusted partner for organizations in industries like finance, healthcare, and technology. Waratek has offices in Dublin, Ireland, and Chicago, Illinois.
About the Global InfoSec Awards
This is Cyber Defense Magazine’s thirteenth year of honoring InfoSec innovators from around the globe. Submission requirements are for any startup, early-stage, later-stage, or public companies in the information security (InfoSec) space who believe they have a unique and compelling value proposition for their product or service. Learn more at www.cyberdefenseawards.com
About Cyber Defense Magazine
Cyber Defense Magazine is the premier source of cybersecurity news and information for InfoSec professionals in business and government. Managed and published by and for ethical, passionate information security professionals, CDM shares cutting-edge knowledge, real-world stories, and recognizes the best ideas, products, and services in information technology. CDM delivers electronic magazines monthly online for free and produces special editions exclusively for the RSAC Conferences. CDM is a proud member of the Cyber Defense Media Group. Learn more at https://www.cyberdefensemagazine.com
Waratek Media Inquiries:
Kira Perdue
Email: kperdue@carabinercomms.com
CDM Media Inquiries:
Irene Noser, Marketing Executive
Email: marketing@cyberdefensemagazine.com
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]]>The post Java in the Supply Chain: Hidden Risk Lurking in Vendor Software appeared first on Waratek.
]]>Supply chains live and die by optimization. But when optimization creates invisible security risks, entire businesses can grind to a halt. The faster you move materials, the faster you make products, the faster you get paid. Every slowdown is a lost opportunity. Every shutdown is a direct hit to the bottom line.
That brutal efficiency has a hidden cost. The more interconnected your supply chain becomes, the more fragile it gets. In the case of the SolarWinds attack, it was not the company’s internal systems that were first compromised; it was the third-party software they trusted. Increasingly, vendor-supplied Java applications are running quietly inside critical systems, beyond the reach of traditional security tools. So those who are tasked with shielding supply chains from risk require new tools that can neutralize the threat from third party software.
Supply chain attacks are a favorite for many modern attackers. Supply chain attacks surged by 431% between 2021 and 2023, and has only continued to rise since. This happens because systems are getting more interconnected — which is good for efficiency but at the cost of risk visibility for operators, as well as insufficient security tooling and high financial stakes.
Lack of Visibility
Third-party Java applications are everywhere in supply chain systems, from inventory tracking to logistics orchestration to financial reconciliation. The problem is, you can’t defend what you can’t see. You might be running the smartest and most efficient security team in the country. But if your system connects to third party technology, you have no way of knowing how many attack vectors lead into your system through their black box. You’re just as exposed, and you have no way of knowing or protecting against it.
Attackers know that breaching a single vendor can offer access to hundreds or thousands of customers downstream. They are playing a long game, while defenders are playing blind. 91% of CISOs in charge of supply chain report an increase in third-party cybersecurity incidents and only 3% have full visibility into their supply chains, “including fourth and nth-party relationships.”
Without visibility, vulnerabilities introduced by vendors can sit undetected for months, leaving open doors into your network.
Most traditional security tooling was built for environments you own and control. Firewalls, endpoint protection, and WAFs assume that you can inspect traffic, instrument code, and force patches.
Supply chains defy those assumptions. WAFs cannot see inside encrypted API calls between vendor apps. Static scanners identify vulnerabilities but cannot fix them without vendor intervention. And EDR agents often cannot be deployed onto third-party virtual appliances or SaaS integrations.
Meanwhile, it takes organizations an average of 204 days to identify a supply chain breach and another 73 days to contain it. Attackers have months and months to move freely through connected systems while defenders are struggling to even get off the starting line.
The financial incentives for attackers in the supply chain game are massive. The industry’s revenue model depends on rapid movement of goods and, as mentioned above, optimization. Even short-term disruption can spiral into major financial and reputational losses. Attackers know this and they also know that these systems rely on a lot of third party technology.
The average cost of unplanned downtime across all supply chain systems is around $25,000 per hour, but it can get much higher. For larger organizations the cost can go as high as $500,000 per hour and in high value industries like automotive, that number jumps as high as $2.3 million per hour.
So what better place to target with a ransomware attack? A ransomware attack is like a bank robbery: the objective is to get in, get the money and get out as quickly as possible. It is the rare edge case where the perpetrator sadistically wreaks havoc just for fun. They want to get paid, so they’re going to target areas where refusing to pay the ransom costs management the most money. If triage and remediation come with a multimillion-dollar price tag, most teams will opt to pay the ransom, get their systems back up and save face with their customers.
At Waratek, we tackle this problem by shifting the security focus from identifying ingress points to neutralizing attacks within application runtimes. It’s much easier to identify malicious code inside a Java application and prevent it from executing rather than keeping real-tabs on an entire perimeter. Our Software-Defined Runtime Application Self-Protection (RASP) does not depend on your third party vendors patching their vulnerabilities to keep you safe.
Here’s what that means for you:
Waratek instruments Java applications directly at the JVM layer. This means we can dynamically monitor and enforce security policies inside vendor applications, even when you have no access to the source. We monitor critical functions like memory allocation, file system access, API calls, and deserialization behavior in real time, detecting and blocking attacks before they can impact the supply chain. Instead of waiting for alerts from black-box apps, you see exactly what is happening the moment it happens.
If you’re waiting for vendors to release patches, you’re playing from behind. And you have no way of guaranteeing that your vendors are doing the same. With Waratek, both known and unknown vulnerabilities inside third-party Java apps can be virtually patched immediately at runtime, dramatically reducing risk of exposure. This transforms reactive patching into proactive protection without requiring any lag in operations, code changes, redeployments, or downtime.
False positives generate alert fatigue and unnecessary downtime. Waratek’s runtime policies are based on actual application behavior, not simplistic signature-matching. This allows security teams to block real threats with surgical precision, without causing service outages or operational slowdowns.
Every hour of uptime matters. By eliminating both false alarms and reactive downtime, Waratek keeps supply chains running at full velocity and saves organizations hundreds of thousands of dollars per day.
Java applications are an integral part of global supply chains because of their portability and maturity. But their flexibility can become a liability. 44 percent of Java services contain a known-exploited vulnerability.
Old, vulnerable Java libraries, deserialization flaws, and RCE vulnerabilities are always lurking inside the applications upon which supply chains rely. Vendors often struggle to patch quickly enough while attackers are actively working to find ingress points. The defenders’ toolbag is lagging behind while the attack surface continues to grow.
Supply chain security is no longer about perimeter strength. It is about controlling hidden risks inside the software. Without runtime control, every third-party app is a potential breach waiting to happen. Waratek gives security teams the visibility, control, and real-time protection they need to neutralize hidden risks without slowing operations.
When every second of uptime equals revenue, your supply chain can only be as profitable as it is resilient.
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]]>The post How to Prevent Your Security Team from Suffering Burnout appeared first on Waratek.
]]>For many security professionals, this job has become a constant game of whack-a-mole. A new CVE is published. Security teams scramble to triage exposure, shut down affected systems, or deploy rushed workarounds. A patch arrives. Teams scramble again to test and roll it out, praying it doesn’t break anything in production. Then they rinse and repeat when another vulnerability drops.
This leads to constantly playing from behind and always working in panic mode. Not to mention, this process does not account for zero-days, which can be actively exploited before defenders even know about them. Or shadow IT, which introduces risk through systems no one even realizes are in play. Defenders need a strategy to get out in front of all the chaos and start playing from ahead.
This issue is only getting worse as the skills gap grows and generative AI gives more attackers access to the tools they need to build and execute exploits. Two thirds of cybersecurity professionals say their job has become more stressful over the last five years and the exact same number cite AI as the direct cause of their burnout and stress.
74% of cybersecurity professionals have taken time off due to work-related mental well-being problems, and 90% of CISOs are concerned about the impact of stress, fatigue, and burnout on their workforce’s well-being. If you talk directly to the security community, 50 percent of security professionals say they expect to experience burnout in the next 12 months.
Meanwhile, the folks who do stick around in cybersecurity have to work in an area that is chronically undermanned. 90 percent of organizations report that they do face issues with skill shortages, and 58 percent worry that it puts their organization at significant risk. With fewer people doing more work, mental health and security are both on the line.
To make matters worse, defenders are often asked to maintain a level of security that is philosophically and logistically impossible. Perfect security doesn’t exist. Breaches will continue to happen and attackers will continue to evolve. The idea that your team can prevent every incident if they work hard enough is a recipe for stress and overwork, and it’s frankly just not a practical security strategy.
This pressure gets amplified by a persistent disconnect between security teams and executive leadership. The two groups often use the same words to mean different things. To a CISO, the word “security” means a posture of managed risk, while to a board member, it might mean complete protection. This mismatch leads to unrealistic expectations and misaligned priorities. Security teams are asked to deliver absolutes in a world run by probabilities and institutional hope.
Resilience Over Security
The first shift that needs to happen is a mindset shift: from security to resilience. Resilience means acknowledging that breaches are not always preventable, but the blast radius can be minimized.
A perfect perimeter might sound like a solid strategy, but in practice, it puts too much pressure on the people behind the controls. If everything depends on keeping attackers out, then defenders are left to play hero every time something slips through. That’s not sustainable. It’s much more practical to use a layered approach that includes application-level defenses built to identify and neutralize threats automatically. Embedding autonomous runtime security within your applications is one of the clearest ways to implement this.
With defense-in-depth, protection doesn’t end at the edge. These controls live inside your applications, ready to act the moment something goes wrong. They operate independently and immutably, so even if an attacker slips in while you’re offline, be it Christmas Day, during a long weekend, or overnight, there’s no need to jump into incident response mode. The exploit is neutralized in real time, and when you return, a full report is waiting for you. That’s what resilience looks like in action. It’s about having systems in place that work even when you’re not on call.
Any team is more likely to accomplish its goals if it ensures its people are happy and prospering. Burnout is not a personal failure. It is a system-level issue. If your team is breaking down, then so is your strategy.
This field is not going to slow down. Threats always evolve and attack surfaces always expand. We cannot slow this process, but we can change how we prepare, respond, and support each other through it.
The goal is not flawless protection. The goal is a sustainable system, built to withstand pressure without grinding down the humans behind it. That is how we build teams that last.
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]]>Waratek is proud to announce that Rimini Street, our first partner in the third-party support market, and the premier recognized global implementer, managed services, and support provider of our solutions, has earned the exclusive title as Pinnacle Partner.
Chicago and Las Vegas – (April 24, 2025) – Waratek, an award-winning runtime application security company providing a turnkey engine for next-generation Java run-time security, today recognized Rimini Street, Inc. (Nasdaq: RMNI), a global provider of end-to-end enterprise software support, management and innovation solutions, as its exclusive Pinnacle Partner.
As the Pinnacle Partner, Rimini Street has been trained and certified with exclusive expertise in the development of Waratek’s custom rules. No other company in the world has the depth of experience supporting and securing global enterprise software with the Waratek engine.
“For seven years, Rimini Street has been an invaluable collaboration partner helping to shape innovation at Waratek with their direct experience implementing, managing, and supporting our solutions,” noted Waratek CEO Douglas Ennis. “That relationship is reflected in recognizing Rimini Street as the first and only Pinnacle Partner.”
Rimini Street’s extensive background and experience leveraging Waratek’s product suite across thousands of applications globally, offers organizations an exclusive qualification in providing protection to Java SE 5-based applications which first launched in 2004 but is still in use today, 10 years after vendor support has ended.
Additionally, Rimini Street leverages its deep knowledge of client environments and enterprise software expertise to develop advanced custom rules and processes for the Waratek engine.
“Rimini Street has effectively addressed the complex challenge of protecting enterprise software. Over the almost 7 years in partnership with Waratek, we were able to build a solution incorporating their incredible technology as a key part of our approach to securing enterprise applications and middleware,” says Gabe Dimeglio, CISO, SVP & GM of Rimini Protect™ and Rimini Watch™ solutions at Rimini Street. “Our team of over 75 full-time security professionals, working around the clock in a global model, have unmatched knowledge on how to implement, operate, and support Waratek-based solutions, creating what we believe is the most effective and seamless user experience available in the market,” says Dimeglio.
Customer feedback from Rimini Street clients enables continuous innovation and delivery to protect enterprise software clients and their mission-critical data. Waratek remains committed to continuously bringing these innovations to market.
Learn more about how to strengthen your organization’s enterprise software security posture through Rimini Protect™ today.
ABOUT WARATEK
Based in Dublin, Ireland, Waratek is the leader in the next significant shift toward active security platforms. Organizations around the world rely on our solutions to prescriptively secure their business-critical applications. Rather than focusing on lagging indicators like network traffic and regex, we fix vulnerabilities in the code while your applications run. Security professionals and developers love our solutions for the low friction and ease of scalability.
ABOUT RIMINI STREET
Rimini Street, Inc. (Nasdaq: RMNI), a Russell 2000® Company, is a global provider of end-to-end enterprise software support and innovation solutions and the leading third-party support provider for Oracle, SAP and VMware software. The Company offers a comprehensive portfolio of unified solutions to run, manage, support, customize, configure, connect, protect, monitor, and optimize enterprise application, database, and technology software. The Company has signed thousands of contracts with Fortune Global 100, Fortune 500, midmarket, public sector and government organizations who selected Rimini Street as their trusted, proven mission-critical enterprise software solutions provider and achieved better operational outcomes, realized billions of US dollars in savings and funded AI and other innovation investments.
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