Your software development lifecycle likely includes some form of Quality Assurance testing. QA testing is an excellent strategy to demonstrate your application works as intended and meets all key requirements your client has specified. Implementing security into your development lifecycle can seem daunting. However, secure design, assurance to your client, improved reputation are invaluable payoffs. This article breaks the approach down into three goals to kick-start your improvements.
“Move Security Left” approach
The earlier you can identify and incorporate security into your development lifecycle, the better. Your testing usually happens just before deployment, whether that be QA testing, security testing, or a combination of both. With this approach, security is part of your application design. Vulnerabilities can be identified, raised and rectified earlier in your development pipeline, instead of creating a panic-like phase at the end of your project to remedy any vulnerabilities found.
Culture
This tends to meld together once you have addressed the ‘security left’ approach. Once implemented, the culture of your development shifts to an approach where secure product development is part of the design and introduced as part of the testing methodology. This concept flows all the way from design to delivery. Considering access control, user rights, functionality and secure development best practice all become part of the mindset within your team to form a more secure lifecycle.
Streamlining
There are a whole host of ways to boost the effectiveness of the secure design approach. Adopting this is simple. Adapt the existing DevOps approach and turn this into “DevSecOps”. DevSecOps sets out the goals above, creating a development lifecycle where everyone is responsible for security. DevSecOps aims to best security practice into every part of your workflow. Ultimately, security becomes a design goal rather than an afterthought.
If you’ve had a consideration or thought after reading this article, we’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas. Want to start a conversation? Reach out to the team at [email protected] or contact us directly on 01684 377966.