In recent years, we have witnessed a tectonic shift in the way organizations develop and maintain software. As part of this shift, IT operations are quickly getting decentralized.

In late August 2021, a major data leak exposed where 38 million private records through Microsoft’s Power Apps portals, a powerful low-code tool that enables both professional and citizen developers to create external-facing applications. The misconfiguration was discovered by the research team at UpGuard and is now well-known as one of the most severe low-code security incidents to date.

Citizen developers are now producing the types of applications once reserved for professional programmers. By using the low-code/no-code capabilities found in low-code application development platforms (LCAP), business workflow automation or RPA, they can bypass drawn-out development processes and reap the benefits of speed and efficiency. Perhaps even more significant is the resulting efficacy—because who knows better than the citizen developer what the company needs to solve its pain points?