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The era of low-code, no-code development has officially arrived. According to Gartner, the rise in business technologists, and a growing number of hyper-automation and composable initiatives in companies is accelerating the adoption of simpler coding solutions. By the end of 2024, experts believe the market will be worth more than $32 billion.
No-code and low-code platforms offer rapid application development models to companies, allowing brands to prototype and create new solutions with incredible speed. They reduce the reliance on a skills-short developer market, and support companies in achieving exceptional agility. With these platforms, businesses can adapt, and evolve at speed, with minimal upfront investment.
Unfortunately, there is a downside. Like most technological innovations, low-code and no-code solutions do have their risks. Navigating the potential security challenges of these systems is essential to preserve privacy, security, and compliance in your organisation.
So, what kind of risks do you need to be aware of?
No-code and low-code solutions are slightly different. They’re both rapid development models, that feature simple tools like drag-and-drop editors and interactive menus.
However, while low-code offerings do offer some code customisation opportunities, no-code systems don’t require any coding knowledge at all. Though the methodologies differ, many of these solutions face similar security risks and challenges, such as:
Using a platform for development that was created by another party always comes with potential visibility concerns. Ultimately, you’re consuming the software and modules created for you by another business, but you may not have insights into the source code, associated vulnerabilities, or even the level of testing the platform has received.
There are potential ways to mitigate these problems, such as requesting a “software bill of materials” from a vendor. The use of SBOMs in the coding landscape increased in recent years, with 78% of organisations requesting these insights from major vendors in 2022.
A major potential low-code and no-code security concern revolves around the quality of the code itself. Each approach relies on at least some code generated in a third-party platform, and those code snippets can vary in quality depending on a range of factors. It’s difficult to know whether a vendor is following the right security best practices with their code.
Once again, companies can consider working with a platform vendor, to ask for insights from security scans for the code used on the platform. Scan results can provide consumers with a level of assurance to ensure they’re not replicating unsecure code.
All digital platforms are subject to potential flaws and vulnerabilities in the cybersecurity landscape, such as cross-site scripting, SQL injection, and authentication or authorisation flaws. Unfortunately, many of the traditional testing tools and methods used to examine these issues aren’t compatible with no-code and low-code solutions.
What’s more, because no code and low-code solutions make it easier for people with limited tech knowledge to create code, the chances of security issues and bugs being introduced into a system increase. This means it’s even more important for business leaders to be able to test the security of their solutions consistently.
This is a broad risk that affects a variety of digital solutions, including no-code and low-code solutions. Developers and business leaders can assign the wrong permissions to different users and solutions or APIs in a low-code environment. Authorisation gaps could mean that users and systems gain access to privileged data they shouldn’t be able to use.
If best-practice strategies, such as strong authentication methods, access controls, and encryption aren’t applied, the resulting application could be vulnerable to data breaches. That’s why it’s so important for businesses to implement a comprehensive strategy for reviewing connections, and authorisations in the no-code/low-code landscape.
While no-code and low-code solutions make it easier to create applications, it’s still up to the business leader or creator to ensure they’re configured for the right secure standards. Low-code applications can store sensitive information, from usernames and passwords to API keys and personally identifiable information. If this sensitive data isn’t protected, problems can arise.
Data can be overshared, endpoints could be left unprotected, and businesses could end up falling victim to issues with compliance and security breaches. Limiting the risks in this landscape means reviewing platform guidelines carefully, and implementing secure configuration practices.
No-code and low-code applications are inherently configurable and customisable. They often rely heavily on various pre-built components and third-party connections. This makes them susceptible to supply chain issues, just like other development styles. For instance, certain widgets, apps, and API keys taken from a marketplace may introduce new security gaps and issues.
Additionally, organisations using a third-party environment to build and host their application are subject to a shared responsibility security model. If the provider doesn’t have adequate security controls in place to protect the applications developed, the business is at risk.
Although low-code and no-code applications are very easy to create and use, they suffer from limited visibility into back-end logs and insights. Insufficient logging can make it harder for application owners to track user behaviours, diagnose potential failures, and examine security issues.
In some cases, where logs are available, they can be over-shared by applications, creating new security challenges. No-code and low-code applications can make it difficult to fully monitor the code’s performance, and even increase the risk of shadow IT activities.
The risks and potential compliance challenges of low-code and no-code applications can vary from one business environment to the next. The right approach to mitigating these issues will depend on your security challenges and the goals you want to achieve. However, there are some simple strategies you can use to reduce risk:
Notably, since some companies will find themselves using multiple different low-code and no-code platforms in the future, it’s important to take a dynamic approach to security. Every new solution you introduce into your business needs to be considered carefully for security risks.
Constantly updating, optimising, and evaluating your governance and cybersecurity policies will ensure you have a lower chance of facing compliance problems from gaps in your technology stack.
Ultimately, demand for no-code and low-code solutions is unlikely to diminish in the years ahead. Lack of developer knowledge in the skills-short marketplace, growing demand for agility, and increasing digitisation have paved the way for these streamlined platforms to explode in adoption.
By 2025 alone, Gartner even predicts that around 70% of applications will be developed with no-code and low-code technologies. For companies embracing the no-code and low-code revolution, a comprehensive approach to security and governance will be essential.
Make sure you have the right strategies in place to minimise your threat surface and reduce risks as you enter the new age of application development.
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