The fast and innovative nature of modern business requires enterprises to become competitive and disrupt their markets. The best way to do that is to incorporate agile methodologies into operational processes. Software development is a business function transformed by agile methodologies.

Agile Software Development Benefits Businesses

Agile software development is the method of developing high-quality software solutions, web applications and mobile applications, where the requirements and implementations evolve through the collaborative effort of cross-functional teams and their customers. Agile software development focuses on continuous software delivery and requires change even in late development stages.

Businesses benefit from agile software development methodologies in various ways:

• Faster development and time to market
• High-quality products
• Enhanced project management
• Reduction of risks
• Increased customer experience and satisfaction

Security is Often an Afterthought

Agile development is embraced by many businesses as an efficient way to deliver flawless software, as opposed to traditional waterfall methodologies. However, many organizations fail to integrate security controls into the software lifecycle. Two predominate factors for why security is an afterthought are the following:

1. Lack of Tangible Security Requirements

Security is considered as a non-functional requirement related to the state of the application or the product, rather than to the functional goals of the system. User requirements usually follow a structure like “As a (user), I need/want (some desire/goal) so that (reason for desire/goal)”. User requirements are fabricated into a story with a reasoning so that developers can design and implement the interaction real people will have with the application. These requirements are mostly centered around an enhanced user experience and guide the application planning and development. However, most of the time, security requirements are not tangible and are often neglected from the user stories. Lack of user security requirements is a cause that prevents security from being planned or implemented correctly.

2. Lack of Agile-Ready Security Practices and Tools

In agile environments, security requirements and processes need to be synced to the operational tempo. Security cannot function in a vacuum. The reality, however, is a bit different since security is perceived as a barrier to fast developments and developers tend to use their tools and practices without complying to the corporate security policies and practices.

The result is that everyone is unhappy. Security teams are unhappy because vulnerabilities make it into production. Development teams are unhappy because they worked overtime fixing some of the issues and have more unexpected work scheduled. Business leadership is unhappy because security and development didn’t work well together. Customers are also unhappy because their applications are malfunctioning and can be breached.

How Can Businesses Integrate Security into Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC)?

Businesses need to close this gap between developers and security teams and make sure that security is integrated and managed by the development teams. Here are some steps that can lead to secure software development in agile environments.

1. Add Measurable Security Acceptance Criteria in User Requirements

Ensure that measurable security criteria that are not covered by cross-functional requirements are captured in user requirements and validate them. During core development, developers should be put in charge of security scans and fixes. This is a great way to help push security into the earlier stages of the software development lifecycle, where security issues are best dealt with.

2. Conduct Thorough Security Testing

During integration and acceptance tests, the application should be thoroughly checked for vulnerabilities. In addition, penetration testing should try to break the application’s security. The best way to cement the application security is to think and act like an intruder. Known security issues can then be sorted out to assure that the applications will maintain a robust secure posture.

3. Adopt Secure Coding Techniques

Make a plan to proactively mitigate common, known vulnerabilities as intruders typically start attacking a system by scanning for these. Follow well-established mitigations when possible, as this reduces unpredictability and unforeseen bugs in the implementation. The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) Top Ten Proactive Controls are control categories and security techniques that every developer should include in their project. They are featured in order of importance, with control number 1 being the most important. This document was written by developers for developers to assist those new to secure development.

4. Use “Agile Retrospectives”

Agile retrospectives is a process to mine the experience of your software development team continually throughout the life of the project. In agile retrospectives you look for improvement actions within the agile group that team members do themselves. Teams are self-organizing which means that they have the power to change the way they work. If they want to try a different way of working, it’s up to them to give feedback to each other, to discuss what happened, to learn, and to decide what to do. In a retrospective, you can uncover major or recurring security problems. It will help you to discover the main causes for security issues, which can be resolved to avoid similar issues in future.

5. Use Application Security Tools

The 2020 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report says most hacks happen through breaches of web applications. For this reason, testing and securing applications has become a priority for many organizations. That job is made easier by a growing selection of application security tools. Modern application security solutions can integrate with current development tools.

6. Automate Security into the CI/CD Pipeline

The best place to start automating security best practices is the CI/CD pipeline. With the help of static and dynamic analysis tools, you can identify vulnerabilities that were missed out during the development and testing stages. The idea is be flexible, have fun, and work together to improve the security and quality of the overall code. Everyone should benefit from this setup.

Team Training

The best way to empower your development teams is to provide them with the foundational knowledge to start questioning their assumptions about how software should be specified, built, operated, monitored, and maintained. They need to understand that quality is not sufficient to guarantee security of software.

Successful security enhancement of each phase of the software development lifecycle requires a good understanding of the security implications of how that phase’s activities are performed in a typical software project into which software assurance has not been integrated.

Besides training your developers as individuals, development team training can be very beneficial to your organization since it can be tailored to your budget and unique requirements. Hence, team training can help keep your team’s software development skills sharp, prove credibility to partners and clients and maximize your training investment.

Building teams of highly knowledgeable developers can help your organization built high quality, secure applications, lowering the chances of inherent flaws being exploited by criminals. Secure applications will also eliminate the danger of having to face huge penalties, liabilities, and loss of revenue due to damaged reputation. The cost of a flawed, insecure application surmounts by far the cost of in-house team training.

(ISC)² is the leader in security certifications and is acknowledged by companies worldwide. To learn how your team can benefit, check out our Enterprise Training Solutions .

How CSSLP Can Help

The (ISC)² Certified Secure Software Lifecycle Professional (CSSLP) certification is a globally renowned qualification that provides a technology-agnostic approach to software security.

CSSLP certification recognizes leading application security skills. It shows employers and peers you have the advanced technical skills and knowledge necessary for authentication, authorization, and auditing throughout the SDLC using best practices, policies and procedures established by the cybersecurity experts at (ISC)².

To read more about agile software development, check out our complimentary resource, How to Reap the Benefits of DevSecOps .