AppSec Bites: Top 3 Things to Consider When Maturing Your AppSec Programs (Part 2)

Maturing security programs along with the growth of development programs are essential to ensuring a safe and efficient development lifecycle. The need to be on top of development while scaling programs is imperative to managing both risk and business opportunities. However, it is during times of rapid development that cybersecurity risks can be the greatest.

In this second part of our AppSec podcast, Tim Jarrett of Veracode and Kyle Pippin of ThreadFix offer the 3 best practices to implement when maturing and scaling their AppSec programs.

1. Know Your Anchor Points

When maturing and scaling our AppSec programs, the first step is to understand the landscape and limitations of your organization. What are the factors you can’t change? It may be an issue of supply and demand, or lack of a budget for additional AppSec scan types.

Maturing AppSec programs is a journey. Through addressing the anchor points in your organization, you are equipped to find ways to work around these limiting factors and scale accordingly.

2. Automate

As the old saying goes: work smarter, not harder. If you aren’t already, it’s a good idea to automate as many scans as you are able. A constant issue with developing and rolling out applications is the lack of human resources. Security professionals are difficult to come by and demanding workloads can bottleneck the speed of software deployment.

Through automating workflows, you can free up time for your teams to focus on addressing flaws and securing the code.

3. Focus on Outcomes

Just as important as finding your apps’ flaws, fixing them in a timely manner is a crucial step to maturing your AppSec programs. Reducing your organization’s mean time to remediation can be achieved through training measures. Utilizing tools like Veracode Security Labs, a platform that specializes in teaching developers how to write and remediate their chosen code, can help your teams learn and improve over time. Another option is establishing a security champions program. Since most developers do not take security courses in college this allows you to train interested developers in cybersecurity, building a base set of subject matter experts that can then teach these vital skills to other developers in your organization.

To learn more about the best practices for maturing your AppSec program, check out part 2 of our AppSec Bites podcast series.

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