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This post will present a list of the best secure development practices.
Critical principles behind them include making security everyone's responsibility and creating an ideal software development environment for building applications from conception to release. How important is software security in the 21st century? Given the recent surge in cyberattacks via software vulnerabilities, organizations should strive to purchase and utilize secure software solutions.
Are any of these terms familiar? These are recent instances of threat actors exploiting software vulnerabilities for malicious purposes.Solarwinds is perhaps the most well-known example of a supply chain attack, where hackers penetrate a vendor's network and infect their software prior to shipping it out.
Information is at the center of all modern business processes and relationships, prompting presidents to issue executive orders on cybersecurity.
Cyberattacks primarily target software that manages today's data.
This article aims to cover best practices for building secure software and how to identify vulnerabilities early in development to patch them at reduced costs and at an earlier point effectively.
Furthermore, we'll highlight resources developed by experts which you can utilize when developing security-focused apps.
What Is Secure Software Development?
Secure software development (commonly referred to as DevSecOps) is an approach to software creation that incorporates security in every stage of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC).
Security considerations are integrated into code from its inception rather than only being addressed after product testing has revealed flaws; additionally, planning phases incorporate security planning requirements early on in development processes.
Developers often see security as an impediment to innovation and creativity, delaying product launches. Unfortunately, this mindset hurts companies financially; fixing an issue during implementation or testing is six times more expensive.
Customers won't be satisfied if they must use products with vulnerabilities hackers can exploit, making customers unhappy and organizations struggling to compete and unable to prioritize security as a top priority.
How can security become part of SDLC from day one? Begin testing early and often; static and dynamic security tests should form part of a secure software development philosophy.
Furthermore, the development team should document security and functional requirements; risk analysis can help identify environmental threats.
Organizations seeking to provide secure software must prepare by training employees, processes and technology and creating a policy for fast custom software development.
Every organization that wants to build such software will need one!
What Is a Secure Software Development Lifecycle?
SDLC is a multi-step approach that integrates software security at each development step, from planning to deployment.
Secure your software development lifecycle allows developers to collect safety and functional requirements.
The SDLC encourages developers, during both the design and development phases, to conduct security testing of applications to ensure their integrity, availability, confidentiality and quality are maintained.
Secure software development entails prioritizing security throughout the story - from initial planning through software code writing - but security must also be integrated into any project before any of it begins.
How SDLC could benefit your organization:
- Early identification and correction of security flaws will allow them to be quickly addressed (shift left).
The sooner security flaws can be identified and addressed during development processes, the better your product will turn out.
- This can significantly reduce development hours and costs while eliminating design errors before they enter code.
- Helping stakeholders appreciate the significance of security methods can encourage more investment.
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What Is A Secure Software Development Policy (SSDDP)?
A secure software policy outlines how an organization should reduce vulnerability during software development. It should provide instructions on assessing, measuring and demonstrating security throughout all phases of SDLC and risk management methods.
Your secure software development policy must set rules for your people. Team members should be fully informed of their responsibilities, receive thorough training, and undergo a stringent screening process before being accepted onto the team.
Segregating duties ensures no single person controls or has complete knowledge about a project. At the same time, testing protocols should assess employee performance and ensure work meets standards.
A practical, secure software development policy must also include software-protecting processes. Separation of Development, Testing and Operational Environments is one of the critical ways of providing autonomous environments free from bias testing; Access Control ensures employees only gain access to data relevant to their job; Version control allows you to keep an eye on all changes to code over time and their sources;
As the initial step of any technical policy for secure software development, it is vitally important to establish the rules governing programming languages and coding.
As these can contain numerous vulnerabilities that must be minimized before growth begins, training on strategies must take place to reduce attack paths. A policy on secure software should include instructions on creating secure repositories for managing and storing code securely.
Under certain circumstances, a secure development policy is recommended and required for organizations adhering to SOC 2 Type 2 or ISO 27001 compliance standards.
Organizations adhering to those criteria must have one for software development utilizing secure practices; you can create your policy using resources like ISO 27001's template guide as a starting point.
Use A Secure Software Development Framework (SSDF) To Ensure Consistency And Good Practices
Many organizations can benefit from aligning their practices with an established framework like NIST's Secure Software Development Framework.
Organizations such as OWASP and SAFEcode offer resources on software security designed to reduce, mitigate, or prevent vulnerabilities in development projects.
Look at the NIST recommended processes for secure software development, which are organized into four stages.
- Prepare Organization (PO): An organization's people, processes, and technology must be ready to develop secure software at both an organizational and individual project level.
- Protect software (PS): Prevent unauthorized access and modification to all components.
- Produce Secured Software (PW): Software with minimal vulnerabilities upon release.
- Respond to Vulnerabilities: Recognizing software vulnerabilities and taking appropriate actions to fix or prevent future incidents is critical to protecting users.
Each practice comprises several elements that define it:
- Practice Description: Provide an identifier and explain why this practice would be beneficial.
- Task: An action or series of steps to complete a practice session successfully.
-
Implementation Example (Example): A scenario designed to demonstrate a practice.
Reference A document outlining a secure development process and its relationship to specific tasks.
The Following Sections Provide In-Depth Details About Nist's Four Secure Software Design Processes
Prepare the Organization: Tasks, Practices and Examples
The first step to successful software development security requirements in an organization is defining its internal (Policies, Risk Management Strategies, Regulations) and external security needs (Laws, Regulations).
Next, teams are organized around role-specific preparation with assigned SSDF roles. Supportive tools help speed up SDLC processes while security checks ensure software meets organizational standards.
Tasks involved with security include:
- They are identifying, communicating and meeting security requirements.
- Selecting training regimens, management support tools and other training aids to meet those requirements.
- It sets benchmarks that document the achievement of security standards.
Examples Include
- Developers need to understand the details of coding and architecture.
- At least annually and following any incidents, review and update security requirements
- By assigning SSDF-related roles, installing periodic reviews, and planning for possible role changes in the future.
- Automating the toolchain management process by creating categories and tools, specifying their respective functions, and automating toolchain operations are some ways in which automation may assist toolchain operations.
- Create an audit trail of actions related to secure development.
- Key Performance Indicators can be identified using automated tools to collect feedback and reviewing and documenting evidence to support standards compliance.
Practices, Tasks and Examples to Protect Software
Protecting code and assuring software integrity until delivery to customers is paramount. This process entails protecting it from unauthorized access, verifying software integrity and safeguarding software after release.
At its core, Code Store operates under the principle of least privilege to ensure that only authorized users can gain access to it.
Each customer receives a copy of each release containing details on the components listed and integrity verification procedures.
Examples Include
- Secure code storage with restricted access.
- Version control is an excellent way to track changes made in code.
- Code signing with only trusted certificate authorities and posting cryptographic hashes of released software are two approaches to secure code signing.
How to Produce Secure Software: Tasks, Practices and Examples
This process is complex and involves various actors and practices. Software must first be designed and tested to meet its security requirements, with third parties evaluated to ensure they do as well.
Developers then employ best practice security writing practices when writing code and configuring build processes to increase product security; manual and automated methods are then used to test for vulnerabilities and ensure compliance. Eventually, software should have secure default settings that provide protection immediately; trusted components may even be reused during production.
Tasks associated with security analysis encompass several specific studies. This may include creating a list of trusted components, assessing risk using cyber threat models, analyzing external security requirements, communicating with third parties to verify compliance, implementing secure coding practices using top industry tools, reviewing code from all its angles through review and analysis as well as designing and performing vulnerability tests to document results and fix all issues identified.
Setting secure defaults is another essential task, though many may view it as optional. They must align with other security features on the platform and then explain to administrators.
Examples Include
- Training developers on best practices for secure construction and risk evaluation; reviewing current designs as well as vulnerability reports from previous releases to ensure all security risks have been effectively addressed;
- Include security requirements in all contracts with third parties while creating policies to manage third-party risk.
- Only develop in areas that require safety codes, and avoid all hazardous building functions.
Utilize only validated versions of compiler tools.
- Combine peer reviews, static/dynamic analysis testing and penetration testing to detect software weaknesses; document results and lessons learned after testing; then document findings.
- Create a component repository for future building projects.
- Documenting the appropriate use of administrators and verifying that security default settings conform to approved levels is critical to effective administration.
Respond to Vulnerabilities - Practices, Tasks and Examples
Remediation is another vital part of security expert duties; this process seeks to correct existing vulnerabilities while collecting data to predict future attacks.
Once vulnerabilities are discovered and confirmed, they should be prioritized and mitigated quickly to limit potential threat actors' window for attacking your network. Once mitigated, their cause must be identified so future incidents do not reoccur.
Tasks in this final stage include gathering customer information, testing code for previously undetected bugs, and creating and implementing remediation plans for each identified vulnerability.
Over time, patterns should also be identified and rectified in other software packages. Finally, SDLC can be periodically upgraded to prevent similar problems with future releases.
Examples Include
- Create a Vulnerability Report and Response cybersecurity Programs
- Automating code analysis and monitoring to detect vulnerabilities
- Prioritizing remediation efforts and assessing their effects for each vulnerability is essential.
- SSDFs are being modified to incorporate suitable adjustments for future automatic detection.
Why Do Developers Skip Security Steps?
Below we have outlined some of the more compelling arguments against secure software development among software developers.
Time and Resources Deficits
Developers under time pressure often bypass security measures. Recent statistics demonstrate this phenomenon - 67% of developers do not address vulnerabilities in their code due to tight deadlines as an excuse.
Business leaders who recognize and value the importance of secure software development may invest additional resources and time in various security tools.
It could take only minutes if they only require one developer to create the code of a highly straightforward form.
Still, more complex setups that may need extra developers to prevent cross-site scripting attacks could take much longer and require additional protection against them. At best, one developer could take minutes to design a form with all necessary safeguards if time was of the essence; under the pressure of time constraints, they may forgo this step altogether.
Education Lack
There are various kinds of developers and varied methods they employ when writing code, making it possible that some may disregard security concerns during development processes.
Security And Development For Silos
Many business leaders mistakenly believe software security should be left to specialists alone. While this may be true in certain instances, there are more efficient means of creating secure software applications than this one.
Due to this misperception, many organizations establish separate cybersecurity teams without communicating with developers and operating in isolation.
Security vulnerabilities often become embedded into code, only to be discovered months or even weeks later - this renders the system less secure and slows development processes significantly.
Noteworthy
Separate teams for security and development may be deployed, but they should work cooperatively whenever possible.
Encourage communication among them freely.
Security Is Not A Priority
Recent survey data indicated that 86% of software developers need to prioritize security when developing new software, suggesting many organizations need to prioritize secure development practices.
Read more: Implementing Security Controls for Software Development
Top Developer Security Practices
Make Software Security A Priority From The Start
Your software lifecycle must incorporate security. Following a secure software lifecycle is crucial. This means evaluating security at each step of a project's journey - planning, design, development, bug-fixing, maintenance and end-of-life-of-project evaluation.
Simple actions can increase SDLC security. For instance, encourage developers to employ security seat belts such as pre-commit hooks to prevent secrets from being committed into repository source code.
Enhance your organizational culture and foster cross-team collaboration to ensure developers who prioritize security when writing code are happy and fulfilled.
Defining Project Security Requirements
Before beginning development, it is essential to identify any security weaknesses or gaps. Use the following tips as guidance.
- Multi-core software is designed to account for unanticipated interactions among threads and processes.
- Strengthen the resilience of your system against both unintended and intentional failures.
Cybercriminals, for instance, often use fake queries to overwhelm a system and render it inoperable.
- Plan a hierarchy of user rights (project roles), so each person's access can be customized based on their responsibilities.
- Set limits on how different processes behave and operate to prevent hackers from damaging or interfering with the system.
Potential security threats
Identification of Potential Security Risks Together with your team, identify any security risks related to the tools you will be using before starting development.
This step must be undertaken before team start-up.
Assume a defensive approach when writing code. Unit test each area that raises concerns. Also, ensure your developers review their changes post-change to check for security flaws or vulnerabilities introduced by every shift to ensure nothing new has been exposed.
Standards And Guidelines For Secure Coding
Each organization should develop its own set of secure coding guidelines to promote a safe software development environment.
Your fast coding guidelines may differ depending on the requirements of your project. Their primary aim should be protecting data in all forms.
Data should always be protected during its transit and rest phases - cookies, sessions, file storage, and database storage are all examples of sensitive information that should be secure.
You can protect this data using encryption services; also, remember that communication channels within your team may attract malicious actors who seek to penetrate these channels to obtain breached data.
To create secure coding guidelines, it is wise to heed the security standards of the tech industry. Standards can promote better design principles within organizations, making these the go-to option for security standards.
OWASP SAMM and OWASP SAMM
OWASP stands for Open Web Application Project and serves as an open standard that provides developers with requirements and methods for developing secure web apps and an approach for testing security.
The OWASP SAMM is an invaluable tool designed to assist organizations with tailoring their security operations according to their risk profile.
NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology - National Institute of Standards and Technology SSDF)
NIST SSDF provides rules for secure software development based on best practices from organizations focused on security, such as OWASP.
The NIST Secure Software Development Framework divides the software development lifecycle into four steps, as outlined below.
- Preparing Organization: Ensuring all technologies, processes and people within an organization are appropriately prepared to ensure secure development - this applies to both development teams and organizational levels.
- Protecting software: Ensure all its components are protected against unauthorized access and tampering by taking measures such as encryption.
- Fully Secured Solutions: Fully Secured Solutions encompass the design and release of solutions with minimum security vulnerabilities.
- Addressing Vulnerabilities: Identifying and fixing security vulnerabilities to avoid their recurrence in future releases is of utmost importance.
Update Frameworks and Libraries
Organizations looking to develop software require using different frameworks and libraries for software development.
Organizations should opt for established frameworks as these will typically contain fewer vulnerabilities than newer models. Choosing open-source components that provide early bug detection can improve your software security. At the same time, secure libraries help reduce the attack surface on your system.
Before adding any framework to a system, developers should carefully investigate its reputation. Human reviews of each new library added are recommended; additionally, having a well-maintained software component registry gives you complete security control of which third-party applications you utilize.
Conduct Security Awareness Training
Your software development team needs to understand all of the security threats they could encounter during development, so provide your team with educational materials on the most common threats affecting software creation.
Understanding how hackers and cybercriminals operate will enable developers to avoid writing code attackers could exploit.
Hold regular team meetings to allow your teams to communicate and discuss techniques for secure development. This will teach them how to produce code that resists cyber-attacks.
Secure Access to Databases
Database(s) is one of the cornerstones of software applications. It must be configured and protected appropriately to avoid data leakage or unauthorized access.
Proper configuration and protection should always be prioritized over convenience or cost-cutting measures to ensure they stay that way.
Use Digital User Identification
By creating digital user identities for various users/developers, you can restrict access to specific individuals.
Suppose you're using it for work and providing users unrestricted or unsecured access to your repository - which often happens due to human errors! - then security breaches could happen more frequently than you realize. Make sure that a digital identity system for secure access is implemented and reviewed regularly for added peace of mind.
Handle Errors And Exceptions In All Areas
Handling exceptions and errors is vital to the sustainability of any system. You can ensure its continuity by customizing the software's response to unpredictability and developing processes to prevent system crashes.
Monitor Security Information
Logging security information to monitor unusual behavior in your solution is vital to spotting security incidents and uncovering any potentially suspicious patterns within the system.
By tracking such anomalous activities, you'll be able to address problems before they become data breaches.
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Final Words
Secure software development encompasses more than simply writing secure code.
From its conception through delivery, fast software development includes every aspect. To guarantee the smooth functioning of your company's daily workflow, approach Cybersecurity solutions topic holistically.
Making security part of everyone's work will enable you to establish it as an integral component of software development cycles and ensure its ongoing improvement.
