Web applications are the backbone of modern organizations, enabling digital transformation, customer engagement, and business operations. However, rapid development cycles, complex cloud environments, and increasingly sophisticated threats expose critical security gaps. Weak access controls, insufficient visibility, and delayed threat detection leave applications vulnerable to attacks, leading to data breaches, compliance failures, and operational disruptions.
Compounding the challenge, attackers now leverage AI, automated bots, and API vulnerabilities to exploit these weaknesses, underscoring the urgent need for more robust application security measures.
The 2025 Web Application Security Report is based on a comprehensive survey of over 600 IT and cybersecurity professionals. The survey explores organizations’ biggest challenges, strategies for responding to them, and the evolving role of automation, AI, and consolidated platforms to provide a nuanced understanding of the application security landscape.
Key findings from this report include:
• 60% struggle with application visibility – Blind spots in workloads, APIs, and cloud environments make it difficult for security teams to detect threats before they escalate.
• 58% cite API security as a major concern – API-driven services require robust anomaly detection, firm authentication, and real-time monitoring to prevent data theft.
• 49% rank DDoS as the top bot-driven attack – Advanced bots pose severe operational risks as a prolonged outage can cost organizations thousands of Dollars per minute of downtime. Yet 62% remain uncertain about their readiness to defend against human-like bot activity, underscoring a significant gap in organizational preparedness.
• 30% or organizations have experienced a breach tied to stolen credentials – Weak identity protections expose organizations to account takeover attacks, such as credential stuffing for instance, reinforcing the need for multi-factor authentication and strong access controls.
• 61% are using AI for threat detection – Organizations increasingly rely on AI-powered security tools to identify anomalies and respond to attacks more effectively. Many organizations report that AI driven threat detection has improved speed and accuracy in identifying malicious activity.
• 43% plan to consolidate security tools – With rising complexity and tool sprawl, nearly half of organizations aim to streamline their security stack to improve efficiency and integration.
We extend our sincere gratitude to Fortinet for their valuable insights and contributions to this report. We hope the findings and recommendations presented in the report will provide actionable insights to help security teams strengthen their application security defenses, close security gaps, and protect applications from evolving threats. With the right tools—those capable of discovering and enhancing visibility of digital assets while employing sophisticated measures like machine learning and threat analytics—businesses are better equipped to safeguard applications and APIs against advanced threats.
We trust that our readers will find this report helpful in their journey towards improved application security and in navigating the complexities of modern digital landscapes with confidence.
