‍Unveiling the State of Application Security Workflows 2025

‍Why We Created This Report

In speaking with security leaders, CISOs, and application security practitioners across industries, one message came through loud and clear: the tools and processes we rely on aren’t keeping up with the demands of modern development and deployment pipelines.

Fragmentation, inefficiencies, and a lack of alignment between security and development are holding teams back. At Kodem, we wanted to understand these pain points better and provide a roadmap for addressing them.

To create this report, we surveyed a diverse group of security professionals:

• CISOs and Security Leaders: The leaders responsible for setting the security agenda
• Spplication security Practitioners: The hands-on experts grappling with day-to-day vulnerabilities.
• Developers and DevOps Teams: The frontlines of shift-left initiatives.

Our findings reflect the collective experience of teams across industries, from tech startups to global enterprises, grappling with everything from fragmented tools to the rapid adoption of cloud-native architectures.

What We Discovered

The data confirmed what many of us have suspected: the traditional approaches to application security aren’t enough.

Fragmentation is a Major Barrier

• 78% of teams use more than five tools in their application security stack, leading to inefficiencies and gaps in visibility.

One respondent summed it up: “ASPMs make sense, but they don’t solve the need for a unified platform. Organizations are still managing five different tools to ensure they don’t leave any gap.”

Remediation is Painfully Slow

• 62% of respondents said remediation is their biggest bottleneck.
• Critical vulnerabilities take weeks to fix, leaving organizations exposed.

The Metrics Are Changing

• 82% predict real-world exploitability scores will replace traditional CVSS metrics by 2025.
• This shift reflects the growing need to focus on risk in context, rather than generic severity scores.

Cloud-Native Workflows Need Rethinking

• 71% of teams say their current application security workflows aren’t suited to cloud-native environments.
• The move to ephemeral infrastructure and microservices demands new approaches to AppSec.

What’s Next for Application Security

This report isn’t just a snapshot of where we are—it’s a guide to where we need to go.

• Unified Workflows: Teams need platforms that integrate across the SDLC, bridging the gap between development and security.
• Real-World Context: Tools must go beyond scanning to provide actionable, context-aware insights that help teams prioritize effectively.
• Runtime Protection: As shift-left efforts mature, runtime security solutions will become essential to secure what gets deployed.

Your Next Step

This report is a call to action for all of us in the AppSec community. Whether you’re a security leader looking to align your strategy with business goals or a practitioner trying to keep pace with growing workloads, the insights and strategies in this report can help.

Download the State of Application Security Workflows 2025 and join the conversation.

At Kodem, we’re proud to be part of this evolving story, and we’re here to help you build a smarter, more resilient approach to application security.

What is blocking your AppSec workflow?

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