How To Secure No-Code Applications In Regulated Industries

Forbes

5 days ago

Yair Finzi is cofounder & CEO of Nokod Security and was cofounder & CEO of SecuredTouch (now Ping Identity) and a product leader at Meta.
No-code development platforms are rapidly gaining traction across highly regulated industries such as financial services, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, manufacturing and government. There's good reason for this: These solutions empower citizen developers to quickly build and modify custom applications without the need for extensive coding expertise.
Some healthcare organizations, for example, rely on no-code platforms to develop patient management systems that streamline patient intake, appointment scheduling, billing and electronic health record (EHR) management.
Likewise, financial services firms leverage no-code platforms for loan and claims management applications, significantly speeding up processes like application tracking, approval workflows, disbursements and insurance claims processing.
Even compliance-related tasks benefit from no-code automation, including workflows for licensing, permitting, regulatory reporting and audit documentation.
While this increased agility and flexibility allows organizations to rapidly respond to new business opportunities, it also introduces potential security and regulatory compliance risks. The very features that make no-code platforms appealing—ease of use and accessibility—also introduce notable security trade-offs.
Because no-code applications frequently operate beyond the oversight of traditional application security (AppSec) programs, the likelihood of overlooked vulnerabilities increases, particularly in sectors governed by stringent regulations like PCI DSS, HIPAA, GDPR and various federal guidelines.
Unique No-Code Security Issues
No-code applications introduce several new risks not typically addressed by existing security frameworks.
Often created by business users outside formal IT oversight, no-code applications that manage sensitive data commonly do not undergo necessary security reviews.
Data connectors over-sharing compounds this visibility gap. Citizen-developed applications that connect broadly to critical systems, like payment gateways, patient records or customer databases, inadvertently allow access that far exceeds necessary limits.
Traditional software development teams have rigorous protocols for securely managing API keys and tokens. Conversely, in no-code applications, credentials are often hard-coded into workflows, making them difficult to monitor and easier targets for exploitation if compromised.
Third-party connectors amplify these vulnerabilities. No-code applications often rely on prebuilt integrations with external services—such as payment processors or document management systems—that may introduce insecure configurations or outdated libraries.
No-Code Compliance Challenges
Proper governance of these no-code integrations is essential in regulated environments to ensure comprehensive vendor management, but compliance becomes a moving target within no-code environments.
Data classification and handling are common issues. Many no-code apps lack clearly defined data management policies, potentially exposing personally identifiable information (PII), protected health information (PHI) and financial data to unauthorized access, improper storage locations or insecure third-party transfers.
Auditability presents another substantial challenge. Compliance regulations such as SOX, HIPAA and PCI DSS mandate detailed audit trails for sensitive data applications. Yet, no-code platforms typically fall short on providing the necessary forensic-level tracking capabilities, leaving security teams struggling with basic visibility questions such as identifying application creators, connected systems and recent updates.
Security Best Practices For No-Code Applications
To address these risks, security teams need to extend their existing application security and governance programs to cover no-code applications. The goal isn't to slow down innovation, but to embed sensible guardrails that allow no-code development to thrive without exposing the organization to unnecessary risk.
Here are some best practices to help security teams manage no-code application risks in regulated industries:
• Establish a formal discovery and governance process for no-code development. Continuously identify, catalog and perform a risk assessment on all no-code applications across the organization. Since enforcing strict policies on citizen developers can be challenging, focus on automated discovery and visibility to surface potential risks, misconfigurations and unapproved third-party integrations before they reach production.
• Continuously monitor the security posture of no-code applications. Use tools or processes to gain real-time visibility into no-code assets, configurations and data flows. Set automated alerts for excessive permissions, unauthorized external integrations and sensitive data access outside approved workflows.
• Adapt application security processes to address the unique nature of no-code applications. Traditional AppSec programs are built around source code visibility and secure coding practices, but no-code platforms operate differently—vulnerabilities often stem from misconfigurations and flawed logic, not insecure code. Security teams should focus on reviewing high-risk workflows, data flows and integration points, applying configuration-based risk assessments and logic reviews to no-code applications.
Securing no-code applications in regulated industries requires more than retrofitting traditional AppSec practices. By building oversight into no-code development workflows, security can enable faster, safer innovation, helping the business automate processes, improve agility and meet regulatory requirements without introducing unnecessary risk.
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