Writing good quality code is not enough to improve the security of your applications. Fostering and maintaining a safety mindset and environment is essential. This will minimize the number of vulnerabilities in your code and ultimately reduce the risk of an extremely costly data breach within your organization.
You can achieve this in many ways, but the human element is absolutely essential. All the tools in the world will not prevent the publication of vulnerable code because it must be produced by a developer who has security in mind. Read on to learn 8 tips to become an app security pro!
- Simplify – Simply put, less code leads to fewer bugs. Write clean, reusable code. Reducing the size of your codebase can reduce your application’s attack surface, improve maintainability, and make code reviews easier. Likewise, by minimizing the number of third-party libraries you use, you can reduce your exposure to supply chain attacks.
- Shift-left – The cost of a data breach is astronomical in financial damage (on average, $4 million) and reputational damage. The earlier in the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) a vulnerability can be found, the less time, money, and effort it will cost to fix. Integrating security into the design process can ensure that vulnerabilities are minimized during development.
- Develop, learn and stay current – Attackers are constantly upgrading their skills and so should you. Keeping your finger on the pulse to stay up to date with the latest threat intelligence and vulnerability lists will help shorten the time it takes to tackle your next security risk. It’s essential to learn new things, try out the latest tools, and follow best practices in security and programming.
- Communicate effectively – Clear and open communication is essential for a healthy team and organization and is equally important for safety for several reasons. Ensuring everyone is on the same page can help avoid misunderstandings and miscommunication. It can also help identify potential security risks early on before they can cause serious damage. Fostering an environment of open communication can help build trust between security team members and other stakeholders. When everyone feels comfortable communicating openly about safety, it becomes easier to identify and resolve potential issues before they cause serious damage. It is also important to create clear lines of communication for external parties. At a minimum, you should have a contact available to report security issues. One way is to create a security.txt file. To go even further, consider launching a bug bounty program to incentivize security researchers to find and disclose vulnerabilities.
- Develop a safety mindset – Be paranoid. Think like an attacker. Improve your preparation by planning for the worst, running through “what if” scenarios and playing out how you would react. Even the best tools can’t detect certain types of vulnerabilities such as business logic flaws (keep an eye out for our next blog on that!). That’s why it’s important to have and be good at critical code reviews. Don’t assume that one protection mechanism is enough, always use multiple layers as part of a good defense in depth approach. This means that if one security layer is breached, the other layers will still be able to protect the system.
- Become a safety champion – It is important that everyone within an organization is aware that safety is one of their responsibilities. Security doesn’t have to be a chore, find ways to make it appealing. Promoting security and secure coding practices within your team and organization doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Start with something small like security linter plugins and nurture that cultural shift into things like security-focused workshops until secure code becomes second nature.
- Automate – Automate boring repetitive stuff. You don’t have time to test every vulnerability, and you can’t do it any faster or more reliably than a computer. Invest in CI/CD, automated testing, and integrate tools like SAST, DAST, and SCA scanners. This will multiply your efficiency and free up your time to focus on the human side of AppSec, improving you and your team’s knowledge and preparedness, which tools can’t do for you!
- Learn from your mistakes – Don’t beat yourself up when you make mistakes or find vulnerabilities in your code. A good developer learns from his mistakes, a great developer also learns from the mistakes of others. Be aware that when finding and resolving a vulnerability, it and slight variations of it may exist in multiple places in the organization. Gain experience by attending conferences and doing hands-on examples, such as our Secure Coding Application Security Labs.
Integrating security into your daily development processes is much easier than you might think. Set aside time in your week to learn about the latest threats. Develop your skills in the language(s) of your choice. Left offset.
#tips #app #security #pro
