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At every stage of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), security is a concern that must be kept at the forefront of developers' minds when implementing your software requirements.
This article will explore how to implement a secure SDLC and help you identify issues before they become security concerns in production.
Security issues can be resolved in the SDLC pipeline before they are deployed to production. It reduces your risk of discovering security flaws in your application and minimizes their impact when found.
Secure SDLC aims to empower developers to create specific applications by including security in their responsibilities.
Why is Secure SDLC important?
Security is essential for application development. It is no longer possible to release a product and then fix bugs with subsequent patches.
The developers must be aware of security issues at every stage of the development process. Integrating security in your SDLC at a level that was not previously possible is necessary. You need to code with vulnerabilities in mind, as anyone could potentially access your source code.
A robust SDLC is essential to ensure your application does not fall victim to hackers or malicious users.
A brief history of SDLC Practices
The Software Development Life Cycle describes the process of creating software. The SDLC usually includes the following phases.
- Gathering requirements
- Analyze the design requirements
- New features designed based on requirements
- Writing code for further requirements (development of new capabilities)
- Testing and verification of new qualifications--confirming that they do indeed meet the requirements
- The deployment of the new project
- Once the product is released, maintenance and development of the powers will continue.
The Waterfall is one of SDLC's earliest methodologies. It laid the foundation for the SDLC phases. These phases were developed in 1970 and are essentially the same.
However, software engineering has changed dramatically since then.
The software was traditionally written to meet the needs of highly-specialized applications. The Waterfall method, used for software development, can take years before it's released.
Modern practices focus on accelerating innovation while still building high-quality software. Most companies have gone beyond Waterfall and use some version of agile SDLC. This was first published in 2001.
Agile development is a method of software development that advocates splitting up significant monolithic releases into smaller sprints (two- to three-week lengthy) and automating application building and verification.
It allows companies to make changes much faster. Agile development focuses more on incremental software building than the monolithic, infrequent deployments of Waterfall applications.
Application Security and SDLC
What about security? In 1970, most attacks were carried out by physically accessing a terminal running on the computer running the application.
In 1970, the world was less connected, and external actors were less likely to impact application security. Security was not a priority in SDLC as new methodologies for software development were implemented over time.
Application security is now the responsibility of IT teams that support applications. Initially, only applications that had been released were being tested.
The testing was done in the production environment, usually annually. This meant potential vulnerabilities were "out there in the wild," ready for an attacker to exploit for weeks and even months.
Since then, many companies also perform pre-release testing to complement production testing. The supplemental security testing was done on the critical release path, where applications had to pass a security test before being deployed to production.
The security testing process can take several weeks, prolonging the new release cycle. It's even worse than the outcome of a security test is impossible to predict: it could reveal a handful of flaws that can be corrected in just a couple of days or dozens or hundreds.
The fix for the vulnerability could involve significant code changes, which may require the replacement of entire components.
It is not uncommon for this to cause application developers to fall behind schedule by several weeks as they try to keep up with the now-impossible release dates.
It creates friction in organizations and forces companies to choose between two terrible options: "signing off on risk" and releasing applications with security vulnerabilities or failing expectations for delivery (or both). Fixing an error discovered late in SDLC can be up to 100x more expensive.
These issues have only worsened as the pace of innovation has increased, and software has been released more frequently.
It has also led to a rethinking of how application security fits into the SDLC and creating a secure SDLC.
What is the Secure Software Development life cycle process?
The implementation of SDLC affects all phases of software development. This requires you to have a security-focused mindset and raise issues as soon as possible during the development phase.
Doing this is much more cost-effective and efficient than waiting for security problems in deployed applications. Security is a part of all phases of SDLC.
Security considerations and tasks vary by SDLC phases.
Five Phases of Secure Software Development life cycle
The SDLC is divided into phases, each of which contributes to the security and integrity of the application. Each step is approached differently, but one thing remains constant: protecting software development life cycles must be the top priority for the team.
Here's an example of how a team developing a renewal portal can implement a secure SDLC:
Phase I: Requirements
In the early phases, stakeholders are asked to provide requirements for new features. When gathering functional requirements for a new release, considering security is crucial.
- Example of a functional requirement: The user must be able to confirm their contact details before renewing their membership.
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Example of a security concern.
Users should only be able to see their personal contact details and not anyone else's.
Phase 2: Design
In this phase, the in-scope requirement is translated into an actual plan for how it should appear in your application.
Functional requirements describe the desired outcome, while security specifications focus more on what is unacceptable.
- Example functional design: should display the customer's email address, name, and phone number from the CUSTOMER_INFO database table.
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Example of security concern: We must check that the user is using a valid token to access the database before we can retrieve information.
The user will be directed to the login screen if the session token is absent.
Phase 3: Development
When it comes time to implement and create the actual design, the focus shifts to ensuring that the code is written well from a security standpoint.
Code reviews are used to ensure that the guidelines are followed. The code reviews may be manual or automated, using static application testing (SAST) technology.
The vast majority of applications today are written only partially from scratch. Developers rely instead on the existing functionality provided by open-source, usually free components, to quickly offer new features to an organization.
These open-source modules are used in 90%+ of all modern applications. These open-source components are checked with Software Composition Analysis tools (SCA).
In this instance, secure coding guidelines may include
- Use parameterized read-only SQL to access data in the database.
This will minimize the chances of someone hijacking these queries.
- Validating inputs from users before processing the data they contain
- Data sent to users from databases should be sanitized.
- Open-source libraries should be checked for security vulnerabilities before use.
Phase 4: Verification
In the Verification Phase, applications are tested thoroughly to ensure they comply with their original requirements and design.
It is also an excellent place to implement automated security tests using different technologies. This phase only allows the application to be deployed once these tests are passed. This phase includes tools like CI/CD to manage verification and release.
The following may be included in the verification phase:
- Tests that automate the application's critical path.
- Execution of unit tests for applications that are automated to verify the correctness
- Tools for automated deployment that swap application secrets dynamically in production environments
Phase 5: Maintenance and Evolution
After the release of an application, it's not over. Even after the release of the application, it is possible to find vulnerabilities in the code that were overlooked.
The vulnerabilities are not always in the open-source code that developers have written, but they're increasingly being located within the components of an application. This leads to an increase in the number of "zero-days"--previously unknown vulnerabilities discovered in production by the application's maintainers.
The development team must patch these vulnerabilities, which may require a significant rewrite of the application's functionality.
At this point, vulnerabilities may come from external penetration testing conducted by ethical hackers or from submissions made by the public via "bug bounty programs." In future releases, it is essential to plan for these production problems and address them.
Read More: What is SDLC?
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The benefits of SSDLC
Secure SDLC represents the "shift left" approach, which aims to integrate security measures as early as possible in SDLC.
This helps the development team plan their releases properly, making it easier for them to identify any issues that may arise.
It is better to avoid unpleasant surprises once your application has been deployed to production. SSDLC helps to keep the release on schedule.
SSDLC is a system where the team that develops the software leads the efforts to ensure security. The issues can be resolved by the experts in the field who created the software rather than having a separate team do it as an afterthought.
Developers can now take responsibility for the quality of their applications, resulting in more secure software.
The vast majority of the security testing done as part of the SDLC may seem like an extra burden and costly to implement, but today the process has been automated.
DevOps, or development operations (read more about this in the following section), is a good example. DevOps must work closely with the developers of the applications to ensure a secure SDLC. This collaboration should be built into the SDLC.
The total cost of ownership for an application can be reduced by fixing issues as early as possible in the development process.
As shown in the following chart, discovering problems later in the SDLC will increase 100 times the cost of developing the solution.
How can SSDLC be ensured?
To ensure a secure SDLC, it is essential to focus on how an application works and how developers translate requirements into code.
As the application develops, security must remain at the top of mind for the entire team. It may be necessary to implement a culture change in your group, automate processes, and check each phase of the software development process.
Defining a secure SDLC procedure that can be used for all applications is challenging. This is because the strength and weakness of the team working on SDLC is crucial.
As a secure SDLC requires changing processes and implementing tools, and most importantly, driving cultural changes within teams, the path towards a well-functioning SDLC can be unique to each company and even vary between business units.
5 Secure SDLC Best practices
1. You should educate your developers
Secure SDLC is closely related to multiple initiatives including:
- Creating secure coding guidelines
- Security awareness training and secure coding for developers
- Set clear expectations about how fast issues found in production must be resolved (also known by the remediation SLAs).
You don't need all these things to be true for you to have a successful SSDLC. But, like with a puzzle, it will take putting together enough pieces before you see the whole picture.
2. Clarify your requirements
What you produce should be simple to comprehend. The development team needs clear, easy-to-implement requirements.
All security guidelines, advice and recommendations must be based on this. It is important that any vulnerabilities found in testing are easy to fix. All people, tools, and processes involved must bring to the table solutions instead of merely pointing out issues.
3. Keep a growth mindset
SSDLC is going to change the way multiple teams interact and work. It's vital that everyone goes into the experience with an open mindset.
The security team should also have the mindset to empower developers to secure their applications.
4. Integrate implementation with other initiatives
SSDLC can be more easily implemented for well-established teams and applications when tied into another modernization initiative.
This could include a DevOps project, cloud transformation or its security-conscious variant, DevSecOps.
5. Prioritize the biggest problems
Instead of tackling every single vulnerability, focus on addressing the important ones and implementing actionable solutions.
It may be feasible for smaller or newer applications to address every issue, but this will not work with older applications. Triage can be useful. It focuses not only on preventing issues in production but also making sure existing vulnerabilities are triaged over time.
Check out the full list of SDLC Best Practices for more tips on how to secure your SDLC.
Read More: Brief Explanation of Software Development Life Cycle
SSDLC & DevSecOps
The relationship between DevSecOps and SSDLC is important. It's possible to get confused when they are used interchangeably.
SSDLC and DevSecOps may be closely related, but they are complementary. SSDLC and DevSecOps both aim to empower developers by empowering them to take more responsibility for their applications.
They also ensure that they do more than simply write and test their code in order to meet the functional specifications.
DevSecOps aims to transfer ownership of production environments for applications from IT departments into developers' hands.
The developers can then focus their efforts on automating the build, testing, and release process as much as they possibly can.
DevOps, DevSecOps has revolutionized the software development industry. Other major changes such as the cloud have also helped.
While empowering developers to accelerate security testing and empower them to be more productive is crucial to the success of most modern companies, it's a mistake for organizations to see application security only as an automation problem. It's more important to implement cultural and process change that will help increase security awareness early on in the development cycle.
It is important that this permeates all aspects of the software lifecycle, whether it's called SSDLC or DevSecOps.
How does Secure SDLC Work?
Secure Software Development Lifecycle integrates security and testing at each stage of development:
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Planning: This stage of the Secure SDLC involves gathering security inputs and requirements from all stakeholders, along with the functional and nonfunctional needs.
It also ensures that security definitions have been detailed and are embedded right from the start.
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Development: The Secure SDLC enhances product development by leveraging security best practices to produce code that's secure by default.
Static code reviews and tests are also conducted in parallel to development to confirm this.
- Build: SecureSDLC requires that processes for compiling software are monitored and secure.
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Test:Testing is essential to Secure SDLC.
It now also includes the assurance that security requirements are met.
A functional Secure SDLC is dependent on test automation and continuous-integration tools.
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Release & Deployment:The lifecycle stage of release and deployment is augmented by Secure SDLC.
Additional monitoring and scanning tools are deployed to maintain software integrity between environments.
CI/CD Pipelines automate consistent and secure delivery.
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Operation:This uses automated tools to monitor real-time systems and services.
This allows staff to be more readily available for any zero day threats.
Why Secure SDLC is Important
Secure Software Development Lifecycle aims to include security in all software development processes, making it possible for secure software from the start.
Secure SDLC matters because security and integrity of software are critical. Secure SDLC reduces security risks in software in production and minimizes their impact if they are found.
The days of simply releasing software to production and then fixing any bugs that were reported are over. Secure Software Development Lifecycle places security at the forefront, something that is even more critical with public source code repositories available, cloud workloads and containerization.
Secure SDLC is a framework that defines responsibilities and improves planning, tracking and visibility. It also reduces risk.
Secure SDLC: Benefits
Secure Software Development Life Cycle is a lifecycle that integrates all phases into security. This has benefits for everyone.
It makes security an integral part of custom custom software development services and encourages it from the start. The following are some of the most important benefits:
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Costs Reduced: Early identification of security issues allows for parallel embedding.
There is no need to patch after deployment.
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Security First: Secure SDLC creates a culture where security is emphasized, with everyone paying attention.
The improvements are spread throughout the entire organization.
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Strategy for Development: Defining the security criteria at the beginning improves the technology strategy.
It also makes all members of the team aware of security requirements and ensures developer security through the entire lifecycle.
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Improved Security: When Secure SDLC processes have been embedded in the organization, it improves security.
Security-conscious organizations reduce their cyberattack risk significantly.
Securing SDLC best practices
Let's examine how you can do this.
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Culture: Establish a culture that places security first.
At the project start, identify the key concerns and incorporate security in the code from the very beginning.
This security-first approach should be extended to dependencies, tools for deployment, and infrastructure.
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Standardization: Develop a Secure SDLC Development Roadmap, which facilitates continuous improvements with embedded security.
Ensure that developers are able to adhere to processes by creating requirements for security best practices and tooling.
Standardize responses to vulnerabilities, so that they are consistent.
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Testing:Use static analysis security tests (SAST) to test regularly.
Shift left and start testing immediately.
Use threat modeling to stay up-to-date with evolving threats.
It is important to ensure that the code stays secure during its entire life cycle by noting deviations from standard practices.
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Testing Penetration: While Secure Software Development Lifecycle encourages testing at all stages of the software development lifecycle, penetration testing is not eliminated.
Secure SDLC promotes testing at all stages of the software development lifecycle.
However, penetration tests are often performed later.
They remain the standard for proactive security and risk management.
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Manage and document: During the lifecycle of development, security vulnerabilities must be identified and documented.
Continuous monitoring can reveal these vulnerabilities at any moment.
They must be addressed quickly to avoid the risk profile or remediation costs increasing.
When implemented correctly, a SSDLC ensures comprehensive security and high-quality products. It also promotes effective teamwork.
SSDLC Developer Security
Security scanning, testing, and remediation can be done from a developer's integrated development environment.
By equipping developers with tools that allow them to identify and fix OWASP vulnerability and stop malicious entries, applications are created with data security and protection in mind.
It is especially useful for Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard compliance (PCI DSS), which demands that developers code in a secure manner.
The conclusion of the article is:
The traditional practice of testing your application for security vulnerabilities during production is no longer enough to secure it.
The types of attack have also evolved with the evolution of the software industry. To deploy and maintain a secure app, you must ensure that every stage of application development is secured. It is important to ask questions regarding security behavior at the requirements gathering stage.
You can also adjust team culture to reflect a more security-oriented mentality.
Secure SDLC allows for a shift of the security risk to the left. This means that you can address the security issue at its source during the requirements phase, rather than having to go back to the maintenance phase.
You can be assured that your application is more secure if you focus on security throughout the development process.
