By Mike Rothman, President and Principal Analyst, Security Incite , 07/07/2008
Print this article
Email this article
Talk Back!
Write to Editor
It's taken years, but finally organizations are starting to understand the
economic benefit of building more secure applications. The costs of fixing an
issue after software is deployed are an order of magnitude higher than doing
it when the software is being built. Thankfully, I don't get many arguments
about that anymore.
But it still leaves a general question: how early in the process you should
be thinking about security? The right answer is "as early as possible,"
but the real answer is, usually, "wherever you can." Thus, I'll start
with the obligatory plug for a secure development lifecycle, where security
is built into every step of the process.
Great, now that I've said that, we can talk about what will really happen.
You (presuming you are either a security professional or evangelizing the need
for application security) will face resistance. A lot of developers think security
is cool, until they learn their code is like Swiss cheese and secure coding
practices set them back two to three months. It's not so cool then.
We'll need to walk before we run, and that usually means doing some type of
code review. This means you are analyzing code to identify potential security
vulnerabilities that could lead to security breaches. You certainly could look
through every line of code you have manually. For most organizations, you should
probably set aside the next 200 years to take care of that. Yeah, that's not
really feasible.
So you'll need some automation, and that's where source code analysis tools
come in. This class of security product has been built to automatically analyze
your code and pinpoint areas of concern. The good news is that these tools will
find problems with your code. The bad news is that these tools will probably
find a lot wrong with your code -- and then you'll need to figure out
how to prioritize what gets fixed and what doesn't.
There are lots of different aspects of these products. All give you a lot of options in terms of just doing simple code analysis, all the way up to a sophisticated developer workflow that plugs into your existing IDEs and manages the entire build/fix process from soup to nuts.
1
Insurance: Discovering the Missing Link of Business Architecture
SOA Infrastructure for Any Economic Climate
Mobilizing the Enterprise: Using RIA and SaaS to Do More with Less
Adapt with Agility - Web 2.0 in your Application Infrastructure
Please pardon our appearance while we work out the remaining kinks of our new site. If you happen to find a bug, please let us know at support@ebizq.net
ebizQ is very interested in what you have to say. To contribute an article, an opinion, or to become a blogger, please contact Peter Schooff.
Nov 19, 2008
This conference will teach business leaders what to expect, and what to avoid, to make their SOA journey a success. SOA is a long journey, not a single project, and distributed architectures are inherently complex. Success requires new ways of working, creating more efficient cross organization processes, adopting new tools, and building new skills.Register
Date: Dec 02, 2008
Time: 12:00 PM
ET- (17:00 GMT)
Date:Jan 14, 2009
Time:12:00 PM ET- (17:00 GMT)
REGISTER TODAY!
This white paper provides a high-level outline of the challenges facing companies around the creation and management of business content. Three...
Download Now
Almost a year after their first chat, XAware founder and CTO Bill Miller gives Dennis Byron an update on what's going on this year at XAware and how that "open source thing" is working out.
Listen Now
Listen to Peter Schooff's podcast with Jason English, VP of Corporate Marketing for iTKO, where they offer a quick preview of ebizQ's upcoming SOA in Action Virtual Conference on Nov. 19.
Listen Now
David Bressler provides Progress Software's customers and field teams with the expertise and experience to deliver SOA. In this podcast, Bressler gives an excellent introduction to ebizQ's Nov. 19 SOA in Action Virtual Conference, where he'll be a featured speaker.
Listen Now
Hear Larry Alston's unique perspective on the open source development model and how IONA is adopting a "functionality rules" open-source-as-a-tactic theme now that Iona is part of Progress.
Listen Now
In this podcast, Rothman flies solo and rants about Web 2.0 attack vectors, providing a primer on the types of attacks you're likely to see from social networks. Rothman also gives himself the "free association" treatment, discussing topics like Facebook and the impact of Web 2.0 on PCI.rnrnListen to or download the 11:39 minute podcast below:
Listen NowIntegrating BPM and CEP gives you intelligent business processes that can react to rapidly changing business conditions with continuous visibility. Learn More
Insurers need to think about creating "true linkage," which means linking business strategy to process to IT investments and thereby setting the foundation for true change. Learn More
To be effective, business intelligence technology must work behind the scenes to deliver relevant information when, where, and how it's needed. Learn More
A lot of people are talking about Enterprise 2.0 as being the business application of Web 2.0 technology. However, there's still some debate on exactly what this technology entails, how it applies to today's business models, and which components bring true value. Some use the term Enterprise 2.0 exclusively to describe the use of social networking technologies in the enterprise, while others use it to describe a web economy platform, or the technological framework behind such a platform. Still others say that Enterprise 2.0 is all of these things. Learn More
Smart event processing can help your company run smarter and faster. This comprehensive guide helps you research the basics of complex event processing (CEP) and learn how to get started on the right foot with your CEP project using EDA, RFID, SOA, SCADA and other relevant technologies. Learn More
|
|