Following a common development process when creating software might not always intrinsically measure up to security standards. To meet today’s needs, it is advisable to incorporate security layer within the Software Development Life cycle (SDLC). Fixing defects at the later stage of the software development life cycle is often expensive. Custom software development services California ensure to integrate security across SDLC from planning phase to release. It helps in fixing the bugs as soon as they are introduced and creates a shield for external threats.
Let’s see how security activities should be employed in different phases of the SDLC.
Stage 1: Requirement Analysis
During this phase, analysts, development teams, and client work closely to determine functional and non-functional characteristics of the application including speed, performance, etc. Security activities should also be suggested during the discussion.
- Functional Security Requirements: The development teams should document security functionality like the behavior of the application. For instance, if the login attempt is failed for the five times then the application shall look itself.
- Non-Functional Security Requirements: For instance, server audit logs should support forensics and it must have server time stamp which invokes system state before and after the operations.
Stage 2: Designing Phase
Developers make high-level advanced design choices to meet the client’s needs. During the breakdown of various components of the application, technologies are decided. For instance, a development team may think to develop the application in JAVA that communicates with REST backend API. But banking application does not communicate with REST API over a secure channel, like TLS. Software defects in the beginning phase can cause security issues later. Following Security Audit Services for Web or mobile, you can execute different security activities at different levels like:
- Do Security Control Design Analysis (SCDA) which determines if the security controls are aligned or violated as per the best industry practices.
- Threat modeling helps to bring vulnerabilities to light. It can detect malicious attacks which are not determined by the internal back-end.
Stage 3: Implementation
During the implementation stage, developers focus on completing the project as per specifications. Besides, implementation of the code developers can also emphasize on embedding secure coding guidelines to make the process secure and hassle-free. The technology-specific guidance includes a checklist that helps software developers to implement everything securely. The security tools also integrate into CE/CD pipeline thus developers cannot merge any new insecure code with production code.
Stage 4: Verification
In this stage of the SDLC, the development team and quality analysts examine the app for defects. Security activities in this stage look for security defects while the application is running. Some examples of security defects in a banking mobile are:
- The mobile app allows transfers of negative amounts (i.e. money transferred to someone else’s account)
- The rendered webpage is vulnerable to cross-site scripting
Types of testing that overall software development life cycle includes:
- Unit Testing
All security-sensitive code should undergo a test suite that verifies every outcome should work accurately. It improves the odds of catching vulnerabilities before they merge as actual breaches. It is notable to always run the entire test suite to ensure no bugs before moving the software to production.
- Penetration Testing
In this, the quality analyst team examines a computer system, application, or network to examine vulnerabilities that an attacker could exploit. To automate every test, the tester utilizes dynamic application security testing (DAST) tools.
- White Box Testing
The white box testing uses static analysis to verify common flaws without even executing the software. It analyzes all code including third-party components, libraries, and frameworks to ensure the highest level of protection.
Summary:
With increasing competition, developers must follow security audit services for web or mobile to detect application security vulnerabilities which reduce risk, trim costs, and speed software development process.