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Steve Millidge, CEO and founder at Payara Services . Modernizing legacy software and technologies that are critical to business operations should be a top priority for cybersecurity teams, especially as the threat landscape grows more sophisticated and regulations become stricter. By updating critical components, security experts can do more than improve the security of their applications and ensure their operations meet key standards.
They can enhance overall operational resilience, performance and future readiness. The vast majority of organizations rely on legacy technologies, with 44% of mission-critical components, such as servers, storage networks and operating systems, estimated to be approaching or having reached their end of life, according to Kyndryl Bridge data . Lacking the capability to combat evolving threats, legacy solutions and products expose enterprises to vulnerabilities and inefficiencies.
These, in turn, can compromise competitiveness and regulatory compliance. Among all critical components that companies should consider modernizing, application servers (and the applications running on them) should be one of, if not the first, to be updated as part of 2025’s cybersecurity projects. Since these are central to hosting and running the mission-critical applications that are at the core of most digital business operations, securing legacy application servers can play a key role in the mitigation of emerging cyber threats.
Legacy application servers often lack modern cybersecurity patches and advanced protective measures, making them vulnerable to increasingly sophisticated attacks. Even with robust firewalls and security protocols, they present vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers and cybercriminals. Risks increase when these systems transition to or embed unsupported open-source projects, as their publicly accessible code becomes a target for exploitation.
Furthermore, without support from vendors, organizations must handle issues, vulnerabilities, and other challenges on their own, which increases the time and resources required to address and resolve attacks carried out by cybercriminals. Moreover, outdated, open-source systems often fail to meet regulatory requirements, exposing businesses to fines and legal consequences. In addition to enhancing the robustness of their infrastructure, by prioritizing cybersecurity projects that focus on application server modernization, companies can also take key steps toward ensuring compliance with the latest regulations.
For example, the EU’s Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) is the latest legal framework that requires digital products involving remote data processing, typically hosted on application servers, to be secure by default. While application servers can contribute significantly to ensuring the cybersecurity of a business and its operations, moving away from legacy solutions can be challenging. In effect, moving mission-critical applications to a different, more modern runtime environment often involves considerable investments of time, money and resources.
Selecting the right solution as well as setting up an effective migration strategy are both essential to ensuring the success and effectiveness of a cybersecurity project. Organizations should go beyond specifying a fully supported, modern and regulatory-compliant solution. They should favor a provider who offers a strong security policy and is committed to frequent releases of security fixes and upgrades.
Favoring an application server technology that comes with a comprehensive service level agreement (SLA) is also beneficial, as it helps companies to protect mission-critical systems and entire businesses. Through comprehensive and responsive support, organizations can take advantage of minimal downtime, quick-issue resolution and the smooth operation of business-critical applications. These elements ultimately support organizations to drive productivity while avoiding costly disruptions.
Before starting an application server migration, ensure the middleware provider offers comprehensive migration resources and conducts a thorough review of your current architecture. This includes evaluating the project scope, identifying dependencies and addressing potential issues upfront. Thanks to this insight, the specialist must be able to create a tailored migration roadmap, minimizing disruptions and maintaining system stability.
The plan should set clear goals and keep you informed throughout implementation. In addition, it should discuss how the technical team is prepared to handle challenges and ensure seamless operational continuity. At the end of the application server migration process, organizations should be able to benefit from enhanced security, operational resilience and improved system performance.
Legacy vulnerabilities should be replaced with robust, up-to-date defenses, ensuring security and compliance with modern regulatory frameworks. In addition, as a result of the move to an up-to-date application server, companies may be empowered to make their applications more scalable through the ability to integrate with cloud environments and adopt more modern architectures, like microservices. As a result of this cybersecurity project, organizations can meet future challenges with a robust framework, innovate effectively and maintain a strong competitive edge.
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