Security

Software development security: a guide for IT business leaders

date: 2 February 2022

reading time: 10 min

Security is one of the most important aspects of software development, and will only become more so over time. With new technologies coming out every day, it's hard to keep up with all the security updates that are needed. This blog post will give you a guide for security, to help you stay ahead of the game.

What is secure software development?

Secure software development is a holistic approach to creating software applications that prioritises security throughout the entire development lifecycle. This methodology integrates security practices, tools, and principles into every phase of software creation, from initial planning to deployment and maintenance.

At its core, secure software development begins with thorough security requirements gathering, identifying potential threats and security needs early in the planning stage. This is followed by secure design, where the software architecture incorporates robust security mechanisms such as proper authentication, authorisation, and data protection.

To perform secure software development, it is crucial to have a secure software development policy that outlines guidelines for processes, people, and technology.

A secure software development framework, such as NIST SSDF, provides a structured approach to software practices. Secure software development practices are essential for addressing various vulnerabilities and threats in application security.

The secure software development lifecycle emphasises the integration of security at every phase, from planning and design to deployment and maintenance. As development progresses, secure coding practices are implemented to mitigate common vulnerabilities like buffer overflows, injection flaws, and cross-site scripting.

Regular code reviews – both manual and automated – are conducted to identify and address security flaws. Security testing is integrated throughout the development process, including penetration testing and vulnerability assessments.

Check out other articles on software security:

What are common security vulnerabilities and threats in software?

Currently, software development does not just include the coding that is used to create specific programs or apps but also other types of projects such as self-driving cars and AI interfaces. This requires a new way to address cybersecurity because it’s hard for one person (or team) to stay on top of everything.

Cybercriminals come up with new ways to attack software systems and a lot of the solutions are not perfect, as they introduce new software vulnerabilities that need to be addressed in the context of secure software development.

Social engineering and malware

Attacks like phishing and ransomware are the most prominent forms of social engineering.

Phishing is when someone tries to scam you into giving them sensitive information, such as your credit card number or social security number with a fake email message that seems legitimate.

Ransomware is malware that locks up all of the data on your computer and requires payment in order for it to be unlocked again.

Now, the factor that is mostly responsible for such attacks is our proneness to human error. Since our reasoning and mentality is flawed, we can easily be tricked by a social engineering attack. Even seasoned developers can be deceived.

We have created two extensive posts on this topic:

The other common mistake is to install software without reading the end-user license agreement (EULA) that you agree to when installing it and granting access or rights to your computer system, thereby creating vulnerabilities in your system.

It’s not just humans who are vulnerable; computers, machines, and other forms of infrastructure are likely to be attacked as well. Having a well-defined incident response plan is crucial to effectively manage security incidents.

Hardware attacks

Power grids, control stations, and heavy machinery can all fall victim to hacker attacks. Most commonly, these methodologies are used to create diversions or distractions. For example, a power grid can be overloaded with thousands of demands for electricity all at once in order to cut the line and cause a blackout.

In 2015, the three most prominent energy suppliers in Ukraine suffered an attack that resulted in 73MWh of energy loss.

Of course, it’s not only governments that can suffer from such attacks, it’s corporations as well.

IoT attacks

IoT attacks mostly consist of data breaches. Information that corporations keep is most often sensitive and valuable to the company itself. The most popular way of hacking IoT networks is by infecting the device with malware and then using that to steal data.

What’s more, because devices are often just storage or gateways for remote servers, an attack on a single point can result in all data security being compromised. This means hackers don’t need even physical access to the machines to wreak havoc.

The most famous example of such an attack is the Dyn DDoS incident in 2016, which took down a number of popular websites including Netflix and Twitter. In this case, hackers had compromised IoT devices to mount their assault on the servers controlling them remotely.

According to Tech Republic, DDoS attacks increased by 91% due to the adoption of IoT on an unprecedented scale. For this reason, mobile security should be one of the top priorities.

Security in Software Development 20211 — *Security in software development*

A deficit in cybersecurity professionals

ISC2 estimates the global cybersecurity workforce at 5.5 million, representing an 8.7% increase year over year and nearly 440,000 new jobs. Despite the continued growth in the workforce, ISC2’s cybersecurity workforce study revealed that demand is still outpacing supply. The workforce gap grew an additional 12.6% this year, with the greatest rise in Asia-Pacific (especially Japan and India) and North America. The Global Cybersecurity Workforce Gap is currently estimated at 3.999,964 (+12,6% YoY). The workforce gap calculates the difference between the number of cybersecurity professionals that organizations require to properly secure themselves and the number of cybersecurity professionals available for hire. The workforce gap does not aim to estimate the actual current job market for cybersecurity professionals.

Cybersecurity Workforce Study 2023, ISC2 (The International Information System Security Certification Consortium)

This leads to an increased risk of attacks, as there simply isn’t enough staff to assess protocols and secure development practices. The cybersecurity industry’s struggle to scale up with demand has led to extensive use of farshore resources like freelancers or third parties who have little expertise.

AI-based attacks

While Artificial Intelligence can be incredibly helpful, it can also be the main source of vulnerabilities for organisations. AI is still evolving and hackers can utilise that technology, if not well implemented, to teach their malicious software based on previous successful attacks.

Instead of looking into vulnerabilities and security issues manually, they could “simply” program a bot to scan the available data and identify entry points and establish the attack surface.

You can read more on the future of AI in cybersecurity.

Malicious data injection

More and more companies rely on AI/ML solutions for their business decisions.

Every new opportunity for companies will inevitably lead to more vulnerabilities, and with data being produced in real-time, if not well protected, cybercriminals can use this as an advantage and inject the servers with information to skew the results.

Remote work dangers

Increase in remote work forced stakeholders to use decentralised networks, i.e. network edge, which facilitates attacks. On top of that, employees have grown more comfortable with working remotely.

People are more likely to fall victim to cyber-attacks or fraud when they’re not physically at the office, so it’s crucial that companies pay extra attention to security measures and protocols for remote work. A well-configured software system is crucial in preventing unauthorised access and securing valuable databases.

Find out how to increase your protection against cyber dangers:

How can developers integrate security into the software development lifecycle?

Seeing that there are so many threats and software security is one of the biggest concerns, the security requirements are getting more and more strict. Integrating static code analysis tools into the secure software development process is critical, as many security defects arise at the source code level.

Benefits of Robust Security Architecture Future Processing — *Benefits of Robust Security Architecture*

These tools help developers identify vulnerabilities early in the code writing phase, enhancing code quality and ensuring compliance with secure coding standards.

Software developers play a critical role in maintaining security in the software development lifecycle (SDLC). They should adopt secure development frameworks and stay current with industry trends to mitigate vulnerabilities.

Here’s a list of security principles and concepts to ensure a secure development process and suitable application security program from an expert point of view.

Software Security policy and secure coding practices

A well-established security policy should be the beginning of any project. Erik Nielsen, Senior DevOps Engineer at Infosec notes that:

A good place to start is with an accepted security policy. Providing examples of known, good security practices can save time and ensure everyone is taking security into consideration at the start of any new development project. Involving the cybersecurity team early and often in the development process ensures vulnerabilities can be detected and mitigated.

Implementing proper security controls can further diminish this risk.

Patch management

Instead of using possibly compromised systems, you should go for libraries that are known to be secure.

Patch management is also important — if you are using third-party libraries with vulnerabilities, it doesn’t matter how secure your own code is,

elaborated Nielsen.

Sometimes, a software developer might slip and use a framework that has weak points.

Static and dynamic analysis

Instead of simply developing the application and leaving it be, it should be subject to constant analysis. According to Nielsen:

Static and dynamic analysis (SAST and DAST) can help identify bugs in the code or at runtime as part of a continuous integration (CI) pipeline. This will catch some issues before they get into production.

Threat modelling

Getting a grip on what threats your application can fall victim to is crucial to the success of your product. Threat modelling can help you identify the security vulnerabilities of your application very early in the software development lifecycle.

Heinrich Long of Restore Privacy remarks that:

Threat modelling is a process whereby my team can identify security threats and vulnerabilities and better understand how to tackle them. Threat models are systematic and structured, meaning they don’t just pinpoint threats, but work towards an understanding of the environment they’re in. Threat modelling has been around for years but has taken significant strides in the last 5-10 years – a big reason my team is so excited about what it has to offer. We have clients from around the country who require the best when it comes to cybersecurity, so these tools are essential in order to maintain proper cybersecurity etiquette.

SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle) and SDL (Secure Development Lifecycle)

Nowadays, these two concepts are or should be, mostly synonymous. Security measures ought to be an integral part of development. Of course, SDLC is a much broader idea, but SDL is necessary to be incorporated in there as well. Erik Nielsen says,

I’m not sure there should be a difference between them unless security isn’t a concern in your application. For example, if you write unit tests, you should also be writing unit tests for security. If you’re writing integration tests, those integration tests should cover access control and authorisation. Just like if a unit test fails, if a security test fails, you stop and fix it. If you find a security bug in production, you triage and fix it like any other bug.

Adding on to that, Nikisha Shah of Simform describes the difference further:

The software development cycle defines all the standard phases which are involved during the development process and insecure development cycle. While SDL is a process that standardises security best practices across a range of products/ applications. It follows the industry-standard security activities, packaging them so they may be easily implemented.

If you are interested in SDL assistance or consultation, take a look at the dedicated page: Security Development Lifecycle.

Penetration testing and monitoring

After you’ve done developing the application, you need to assume that threats will change. Frequent penetration testing and continuous monitoring are necessary to ensure security.

Nielsen agrees,

In production, continuous security monitoring is essential. Software doesn’t end at development — a culture of DevSecOps means that there is a constant operations feedback process.  Operations, like diamonds, are forever (or at least for the life of the product), and even if your app is normally secure today, that does not mean that new exploits won’t later be found. That’s why constant monitoring and regular pen-testing is important along with considering security in all phases of development.

Security awareness training

To best prepare for future challenges, businesses will need to collaborate not only internally but also externally with other security experts and IT specialists who have a wide range of experience. They can share their expertise with one another to strengthen the company’s security.

Qualified professionals should be equipped with the knowledge of how to avoid cyber-attacks in order to protect data and comply with legislation.

Diversity in secure software engineering

A robust system will need to be able to deal with multiple types of attacks, both online and offline because an organisation can never predict when a cyber-security attack could happen. Diversity is important in that it gives stakeholders more opportunities for defense as well as an offense against threats.

Cloud Computing

If you’re not already using it, cloud computing could save your company money in terms of both hardware as well as application development.

For example, multi-cloud strategies are known to provide a higher degree of security than using a single provider. Since you diversify your processes between different platforms, cloud computing security is better.

*Key elements of cloud security architecture*

There are also numerous advantages to cloud computing including scalability, faster deployment of resources among many others. If you’d like to find out more, here’s our cloud service provider comparison.

Read more about security in cloud computing:

Want to implement the best security solutions for your software?

The security market will continue to grow at a rapid pace due to the ever-increasing security risks and damages caused by cyberattacks. Companies should not only be on guard for attacks but also look to invest in the right security solutions, train their staff, and look out external Software Development Services when needed.

In order to stay ahead of cybercriminals, it is now more important than ever for companies to invest in advanced cybersecurity solutions and keep staff up-to-date on the latest trends. Educate your employees about identifying design flaws, using the best coding practices, business risks, web application security principles, as well as protection mechanisms to ensure that all components of your software are safe and secure.

Cybersecurity_Consulting_Future_Processing

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