October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month—a global moment to refocus on security-first thinking and resilience. For CISOs and AppSec leaders, it’s a timely reminder that true cyber defense doesn’t start after deployment or during incident response. It starts earlier—right in the build phase.
The CISO’s dilemma
CISOs and application security leaders are under constant pressure. Attack surfaces keep expanding with APIs, mobile apps, and AI-assisted development multiplying potential entry points (Gartner CISO Guide). At the same time, regulatory expectations are rising—demanding not just proof that vulnerabilities are fixed, but that they’re fixed fast and consistently.
And then there’s the backlog. Thousands of unresolved vulnerabilities pile up across releases, slowing velocity and straining relationships between security and development teams. It’s a familiar friction point—and one that undermines both risk management and confidence in AppSec maturity.
Late-stage security testing simply isn’t sustainable. The longer vulnerabilities linger, the more expensive they are to fix, the more they delay releases, and the more risk they introduce. The real goal isn’t just to manage the backlog—it’s to prevent it from forming in the first place.
The true cost of late fixes
Post-production fixes can cost up to ten times more than those made during coding or build. During Cybersecurity Awareness Month, it’s worth reframing that number—not just as a statistic, but as a clear call to action.
When vulnerabilities are discovered late, they drain:
- Developer productivity: Revisiting old code disrupts focus and velocity.
- Operations: Emergency patching eats into resources and increases downtime risk.
- Customer trust: Vulnerabilities in production aren’t just bugs; they’re potential breaches.
By shifting remediation into the build phase, teams can cut these costs, accelerate delivery, and improve their overall security posture—proving that resilience and innovation don’t have to be at odds.
From reactive to proactive risk reduction
A backlog isn’t just a workload issue—it’s a risk issue. Every unresolved high-severity vulnerability represents a potential breach, compliance failure, or reputational threat.
Build-phase security turns that risk equation on its head. With Backlogs are more than a resource problem. They are a risk problem. Every unresolved critical or high-severity vulnerability represents a potential breach, compliance failure, or reputational crisis.
OpenText™ SAST, DAST, and SCA integrated directly into CI/CD pipelines, organizations can stop vulnerabilities before they ever reach production—catching:
- Injection flaws in custom code
- Insecure open-source dependencies
- API misconfigurations
- Secrets and IaC weaknesses
The results speak for themselves: fewer exploitable issues in production, smaller attack surfaces, and tangible proof of reduced enterprise risk. For boards asking, “How do we know we’re safer this quarter than last?”—this is how.
The compliance advantage
Regulatory compliance has evolved from checkbox exercise to continuous proof of secure development practices. Frameworks like GDPR, PCI DSS, and sector-specific mandates expect security to be baked into the build.
Build-phase security strengthens compliance through:
- Continuous evidence – Integrated testing creates an auditable trail of remediation before release.
- Policy-driven governance – Automated “stop-the-build” controls enforce standards consistently.
- Scalability – Continuous compliance replaces audit crunch time with calm, repeatable assurance.
For CISOs, this turns compliance from a reactive cost into a proactive advantage—and a measurable signal of program maturity.
The role of AI in accelerating results
Shifting left has historically burdened developers with noisy scans and false positives. Modern AI, however, changes the game.
With OpenText™ Application Security Aviator, teams can:
- Filter out false positives with human-level accuracy.
- Receive contextual, plain-language explanations of vulnerabilities.
- Get instant remediation guidance for true positives.
The result? Developers fix faster and with more confidence. AppSec teams handle higher volumes without burnout. Productivity and ROI both rise.
Breaking through the backlog
To move from backlog to breakthrough, leading organizations take these steps:
- Integrate security early by embedding OpenText SAST, DAST, and SCA directly into CI/CD workflows.
- Define stop-build policies by setting clear thresholds for critical vulnerabilities and enforcing them automatically.
- Enable developers through contextual remediation guidance and ongoing secure coding education.
- Measure outcomes by tracking time-to-remediate, pre-release fix rates, and compliance pass percentages.
- Continuously improve by using OpenText ASPM dashboards and analytics to refine priorities and demonstrate ROI.
The leadership mandate
Application security can’t remain an afterthought or a siloed program. It must evolve into an enabler of innovation and a measurable driver of risk reduction.
By addressing vulnerabilities in the build phase, CISOs achieve:
- Financial gains: Lower remediation costs and faster ROI.
- Risk reduction: Fewer vulnerabilities in production and fewer compliance headaches.
- Regulatory confidence: Continuous, auditable assurance for regulators and customers alike.
From backlog to breakthrough: A call to action
The old model—letting vulnerabilities pile up and trusting teams to catch up—no longer works. The backlog isn’t just a technical burden; it’s a business risk.
This Cybersecurity Awareness Month, it’s time to redefine resilience. By fixing vulnerabilities in the build phase, organizations can move from reactive firefighting to proactive defense. They can transform AppSec from a cost center into a value engine—one that protects innovation while proving measurable impact to the business.
The breakthrough is here:
Fix it in build. Stop vulnerabilities before they ever become business problems.
Contact us
