In The Spotlight: Secure Application, an Information Security Based Consulting Firm, Leads the Security Space with Its Comprehensive Capabilities

As the modern day businesses get more and more dependent on networks to stay competitive in the market, they also become more vulnerable to cyberattacks. It has been witnessed that cyberattacks have been increasing at a steady pace year by year, and information security incidents and accidents have become a crucial issue that needs to be taken care of because of their potential to adversely affect an organisation’s business activities. This makes it absolutely indispensable for firms to double their efforts to counter such attacks. This is where Secure Application comes in with its unique experience and latest technology that completely caters to each and every vital security needs.

Secure Application is one of the leading consulting firms in Information Security. It takes pride in being a leading independent firm and works closely with its clients to address their security concerns without disrupting their ability to do business.

In conversation with Shylaja Chandrasekar, CEO of Secure Application

Q. Can you brief us about the history of your company?

Secure Application was started in the year 2005 with just five people performing application security testing for medium size e-commerce Sites. Now we have built a team of hundred employees who are working in different client locations and catering to the needs of customers for a variety of security solutions and services.

Secure Application is an international expert in cyber security and risk mitigation that works with businesses to protect their brand, value and reputation against the ever-evolving threat landscape. With our knowledge, experience and global footprint, we are best placed to help businesses identify, assess, mitigate & respond to the risks they face. We are passionate about making the Internet safer and revolutionizing the way in which organizations think about cyber security.

Q. How do you position your company in the current market scenario?

Secure Application is an independent provider of Information Security Architecture, Strategy and Solution Integration services to a number of leading global organizations and security vendors in both the public and private sector.

Our continued success is firmly based on the experience and capability of our people. Our consultants are highly accredited, and we invest heavily in training on an ongoing basis. We have strong foundations in a host of Information Security Architecture frameworks, IT Governance Methodologies and industry best practice principles, along with strong expertise in the selection, design and integration of solutions from a range of technical security vendors.

Q. How do your products and service offerings benefit your clients?

With the growth in cyberattacks and data breaches costing millions every year to the business and public sector, cybersecurity is now high on the strategic agenda. By putting proper cybersecurity assessments and audits in place, organisations can define the right strategy and transformation program to protect their sensitive data and assets. This demand for speed leaves many organisations feeling that there is not enough time to spend on security, which increases the risk to their critical business applications.

Secure Application experts have unmatched experience in application/mobile security in general and testing specifically. Every test we execute is reviewed by a security expert that analyzes the results, reduces any false positives, and provides remediation guidance. In all but our most basic automated scan, a security expert will call your team to review the test and discuss the remediation guidance to help them fix what we find. Our Core Security Services includes:

• A smooth transition from internal to external security teams
• Develop a security roadmap unique to your organization
• Reduce the costs of robust cyber security measures
• Application security testing
• Penetration testing
• Mobile application security testing

Q. How do you amalgamate latest technology with your business objectives?

Today, more than ever, successful technology executives must help their executive clients understand how technology fits into — or, even better, power in their business. CFOs are typically attracted to lower up-front costs and the ability to pay only for what you use. CMOs are typically looking to keep the company’s brand fresh and respond to changing market conditions.

Secure Application is part of making this shift, but most of the hard work at the executive level revolved around understanding each executive’s pain points, what they wanted to get out of cyber security, and aligning technology to help them meet their goals. Our new services include IoT security testing, mobile application security testing, cloud security consulting, and cyber security consulting. In addition, we are currently focusing more on the BFSI sector and ecommerce portals which deal with customer credit card data.

Q. What would you say are the factors that differentiate you from others in the domain?

Our services are underpinned by its Core Values, which are:

• Costing
• Transparency and full legal compliance
• Ethicality in our information gathering and investigations
• Proportionality providing balance and relevance
• Support providing what the client wants as well as what the client needs
• Continuous development of staff and technological resources

Q. What are your present and future focus areas?

We wish to build a strong presence in the cyber security market, and focus more on ‘CYBER SECURITY AS A MANAGED SERVICE’.

Knowing the Visionary

Shylaja Chandrasekar, CEO

After joining as a CEO in the year 2008, she has replaced founders and integrated $50m acquired business into mainstream global business while improving efficiency by 40%. Her leadership has scaled the company to be the largest security testing company in South India. Her ideas have created new businesses, bootstrapped several new products and services from the ground up into profitability that is collectively valued at $70m. She has been the driving force behind the company’s success through the combination of sound business practices, leadership and expertise related to growing business through developing services and around software products.

She has co-invented a new product platform and business model for eliminating efforts on post-sales support, enabling rapid product development and reduced 17% software warranty cost of multi-billion dollar product line over 3 years.

Shylaja holds an MBA in HR from the University of Madras. She has also completed her CISA in 2010.

“We are committed to staying on top of the latest technology in the security industry. Adopting the situation and analyzing the environment are the best tools taken by us to give customer support in all circumstances.”