What Does "Secure by Design" Mean?
Secure by design is about building products, services, and systems using secure practices from the initial stages to final deployment.
SbD is not just a set of technical guidelines; it seeks to redefine organizational culture and processes at a high level to incorporate continuous improvement and security practices in the core of software development. The main tenets of “secure by design” include:
- Adopting robust cybersecurity frameworks and practices
- Establishing strong data protection controls
- Incorporating security testing in all phases of a project’s development.
This approach is effective in reducing the number of security flaws introduced in software, resulting in more reliable products.
Importance of Security in Software Development
As security threats grow in sophistication and severity, and cyberattacks become more frequent and harmful, insecure software presents an increasingly unacceptable liability. Security vulnerabilities serve as an entry point for attackers, facilitating data theft, system compromise, and disruption of services.
Data breaches have severe consequences for an organization. The repercussions of a breach include:
- Destruction or theft of sensitive information
- Broken customer trust
- Potential substantial financial losses
Since SbD integrates security into every stage of the SDLC, developers expand their security awareness and are empowered to mitigate risks. A secure by design approach additionally helps to ensure regulatory compliance, minimizing violations and the penalties which may result.
By having a proactive approach to addressing security, you avoid the significant financial and reputational damage associated with a data breach.
8 Key Principles of Secure by Design
The core principles help organizations form solid processes for secure software development. Make sure to follow these key principles throughout the SDLC:
- Threat Modeling: Threat modeling helps to prioritize security efforts, focusing on the most severe risks. This helps to identify cyber threats early in development, enabling developers to remediate issues proactively.
- Shifting Security Left: Integrating security early in the SDLC, also known as “shift left security,” ensures that security is a fundamental aspect of software development. Two models which formalize this practice are Secure SDLC and DevSecOps.
- Data Protection: To secure data throughout its lifecycle and prevent unauthorized access, encrypt data at rest and in transit, and implement strict access controls to restrict permissions. Further security measures, such as data loss prevention (DLP), help monitor and protect sensitive data.
- Security as Code (SaC): SaC involves the automation of security checks and tests into the development process. In doing so, potential vulnerabilities in code are identified early and remediated prior to deployment into production.
- Secure Coding Practices: The fundamentals of secure coding include input validation, output encoding, error handling, exception management, and use of encryption to secure communications.
- Defense in Depth: Also known as layered security, the practice of implementing overlapping defensive systems and procedures enhances the overall security posture, reducing the likelihood of compromise.
- Secure Configuration: Organizations further reduce risks by adopting secure and standardized default settings, enforcing strict access control policies, and implementing a patch management plan to regulate timely updates.
- Least Privilege: The principle of least privilege (PoLP) demands that users and applications are granted only the minimum necessary permissions required to perform their tasks. Adhering to this practice reduces the attack surface and minimizes potential damage in case of a compromise.
Benefits of a Secure by Design Approach
There are many potential benefits of practicing secure software design strategies:
- Reduced Risk of Breaches: SbD encourages proactively contending with security concerns, and consequently organizations minimize the risk of incidents and loss, and protect valuable data and infrastructure assets.
- Improved Efficiency: SbD focuses on early detection and mitigation of software vulnerabilities, reducing the need to remediate flaws identified in production. This frees up developers to focus on adding new features and functionality.
- Improved Developer Skills: By encouraging secure coding practices and a culture of security within developer teams, overall developer awareness and skills may be improved, resulting in higher-quality software.
- Enhanced Product Quality: Software developed using secure by design practices have fewer critical defects, making them more resilient and reliable.
- Regulatory Compliance: SbD helps organizations achieve and maintain compliance with data protection regulations such as GDPR and CCPA, helping them to avoid fines and legal liabilities.
- Enhanced Brand Reputation: The higher quality and improved resilience of secure by design software reinforces positive market perceptions and customer trust in the organization’s products and services.
- Improved System Resilience: Incorporating multiple layers of defense and following best practices like PoLP, systems designed with SbD principles in mind are better prepared to withstand attacks.
- Lower Long-term Costs: While the initial investment in time and effort may be higher than traditional security methodologies, long-term expenditures are lower due to fewer vulnerabilities and their associated costs.
Implementation Strategies
To implement a secure by design approach, organizations can take these steps:
#1: Education and Training
The first step in introducing SbD principles is to establish:
- Security-focused culture
- Open communication
- Collaboration
Provide training and education on secure coding practices and offer ongoing learning opportunities to ensure developers remain aware of emerging threats and best practices.
#2: Security Gates and Checkpoints
Integrate security reviews throughout the stages of the SDLC.
For instance, perform threat modeling during the design phase. Augment continuous integration / continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines with static application security testing (SAST) tools for use during the development phase, and dynamic application security testing (DAST) during testing.
#3: Tooling and Zero Trust
In addition to amplifying CI/CD pipeline security with SAST and DAST tooling mentioned above, use software composition analysis (SCA) tools to assess the security of third-party libraries.
Implement a zero trust model to ensure all components continually verify identity and authorization.
#4: Continuous Monitoring
Continuous monitoring and feedback help streamline and improve processes.
Conduct regular security audits to identify vulnerabilities, perform penetration tests to evaluate resilience, and collect input from developers, management, and customers to inform future improvements.
Secure Your Enterprise with Check Point
Cybersecurity threats are a serious and growing problem, which makes the adoption of secure by design principles increasingly important for software development teams. The SbD approach strengthens an organization’s general security posture, helping to mitigate risks earlier in the development process, reducing costs and improving risk management.
Check Point CloudGuard is a cloud-native security platform that supports organizations in implementing secure by design methodologies into their development processes. With industry-leading security controls, threat detection capabilities, and compliance reporting features, CloudGuard is an effective tool for streamlining and enhancing the adoption of secure design principles and best practices.
Sign up for a demo of CloudGuard to discover how your organization can seamlessly integrate secure by design principles into existing cloud infrastructure and experience firsthand the advantages of a more secure software development lifecycle.
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