IBM offers free tools for application security

The offerings consist of IBM Secure Shell Library for Java, which automatically allows customers to encrypt Java application data transferred from one server to another, and the Security Workbench Development Environment for Java, which lets developers test and validate applications.

The latter solution will let developers automate the testing process by suggesting security policies, according to IBM.

"Developers and application providers can easily embed authorization and access privileges into their development processes when building new applications," IBM’s statement said. "Identifying the authorization requirements and defining the authorization policies can be difficult and error prone because developers currently need to run applications through many security cycles and test approaches in order to isolate security issues."

The data encryption software, meanwhile, is especially meant for banking, e-commerce and healthcare organizations, which maintain confidential customer data, IBM said in the statement.

The tools will help organizations avoid financial loss due to cybercrime, the statement said.

"Security has become top of mind among corporate software developers, independent software vendors and academia, as data protection has become a key boardroom issue," said Buell Duncan, general manager for IBM Developer Relations. "Whether it is the theft of credit card information from a retail web site, or the pilfering of private employee data from corporate data sources, all companies are at risk of having their business and reputation impacted by hackers and malicious internal users.

The new software is hosted and available for download on alphaWorks, IBM’s technology portal.