Are Poor Developer Practices the Next Security Catastrophe in Tech?
The Human Factor in Security: People are the weakest link in IT security. Human errors, often overlooked, can severely undermine even the best technological defenses. A robust security framework for developers is essential.
Speedy Development: A Risky Race: The push for rapid deployment and continuous integration encourages developers to prioritize speed over security, leading to complacency and increased vulnerability to potential threats.
Privilege Problems: Admin Access Risks: Unnecessary admin privileges for developers create security challenges by allowing unauthorized changes, complicating compliance efforts, and exposing environments to potential breaches.
Code Vulnerabilities: A Hacker's Playground: Common coding vulnerabilities like SQL injections and XSS attacks present significant risks. Developers must adhere to secure coding practices to mitigate these threats and protect sensitive data.
Trust But Verify: Open Source Awareness: Increased reliance on open source components and AI-generated code can introduce security risks if developers don't thoroughly vet these tools, requiring ongoing vigilance and education in secure practices.
It’s been said that the weakest link in IT security is people. More trusting than a computer and less compliant in times of pressure, the human factor is often overlooked in the security process.
Traditionally, human error has been treated with a blase attitude. We know it produces challenges, but we never fully address them, often focusing on areas such as tools rather than developing a robust security framework for people. However, as software development evolves, so do the threats targeting it, and lapses here can undermine even the most advanced security measures.
Poor developer practices are emerging as a significant concern in an organization's security, and technological advancements cannot mitigate this. Encryption algorithms, automated patch management, and scanning for vulnerabilities are all useful components in defending your tech stack, but we have found ourselves in the age of complacency in how we arm our developers, with subsequent poor practices putting compliance at risk.
What is Leading to Poor Developer Practices?
Historically a time-poor discipline, developers have found themselves with more and more on their plates. Developers have an arsenal of tools at their disposal, and with this comes more immediate results. More regular deployments and software updates have changed the expectations of customers and users, and this expectation is placed firmly on developers’ shoulders—with a need to innovate fresh and fast. In the eyes of security, this is a recipe for disaster.
Rapid deployment requests and a growing emphasis on continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) see developers overly trusting the automation mechanics within their CI/CD pipelines and exposing themselves to security risks and breaches. The agile methodology that is so popular in the developer space encourages developers to prioritize speed and efficiency, and in turn, leads to the natural sidelining of security measures. In theory, the automation mechanics within CI/CD should provide security checks, but time-poor developers don’t have time to audit and maintain them regularly.
Another factor contributing to poor developer practices is the complexity of today’s software environments. Over time, developers often gain unnecessary admin privileges and must manage third-party architectures and intricate dependencies. The key to success for organizations is compliance, yet many developers find themselves with elevated privileges for deployments.
This practice unearths a plethora of challenges, as it grants anyone with admin privileges the ability to make unauthorized changes, hindering auditing and compliance efforts and creating extra workload for developers in unraveling these changes. More concerningly, this practice exposes development environments to security breaches should a bad actor gain access to an account with enhanced admin privileges.
The software development space is already one of complexity, and as technology has advanced, so has this environment and business strategy. As Global 2000 companies consolidate their business operations around comprehensive, integrated platforms such as Pega, ServiceNow, SalesForce, and others, the type of applications that need to be built and supported represents a change from traditional pro-code developed apps.
Additionally, privileges, delivery pipelines, and development practices like Agile and Continuous Delivery, which are part of DevOps, need to be adapted. Amidst this platform trend, even the most experienced developers and administrators may inadvertently introduce security risks.
How a Single Line of Code Can Take Down Your Operation
Security is an ongoing headache for organizations, and technology has enabled threats to originate from anywhere. A successful attack can cause a myriad of problems, both financial and legal, and quickly halt innovation.
One of the most significant areas for vulnerabilities is within the coding phase, including attacks such as:
- SQL injections involve an attacker injecting code that can destroy database records or schemas. These techniques are used to delete, steal, or change sensitive data within organizations and are one of the most common hacking techniques. Recently, ethical hackers have demonstrated their ability to bypass TSA checks through SQL injections.
- Cross-site scripting (XSS) targets trusted applications or websites, meaning that reputational damage can be severe. Attacks will see malicious scripts added onto a business’ website, and these will then execute when a user loads the website. It is usually attached to the end of a URL, and a victim is enticed to click on it, or more complexly, it is an injection attack embedded within a business’ code.
- Buffer overflows occur when a program attempts to input more data within a buffer than it can hold. With nowhere else to go, the extra data will overflow into the memory and risk corrupting or overwriting key information in this space. This software coding error allows hackers to exploit vulnerabilities, steal or change data, and gain access to sensitive customer or business information.
These types of attacks are more popular and, as such, are well-understood by developers. They can largely be mitigated by adhering to secure coding practices, Continuous Testing, and Continuous Monitoring. Despite this, organizations cannot get comfortable and need to regularly check the validity of their coding guidelines and educate developers on how to avoid newer forms of hacking.
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In addition, a greater reliance on open-source components, third-party libraries, and AI-supported code generation may see developers unintentionally engaging in insecure coding practices. Developers are time-crunched and are integrating these components to expedite their delivery. As such, we can expect to see the door open to greater security risks and exploitation, with developers trusting open-source components, libraries, and AI without thoroughly vetting their validity.
With that said, numerous tools automate this vetting process, but perhaps it is time to begin vetting the identity and authenticity of open-source contributors to reduce the risk of state-backed bad actors. A single line of insecure code within a library can compromise an entire application, wasting countless hours and resources and opening up an organization, nation, and the public to vulnerabilities. And, despite the vast AI advancements in code development, AI-generated code must pass established procedures, practices, and protocols before production deployment.
Continuous Education and Upskilling is Critical to Uphold Security
As with any technology or discipline, regular education is key, and developers are often expected to enhance their education and training within their own hours. Organizations that want to prevent their developers and system administrators from engaging in poor security practices must invest in training rather than requiring IT teams to self-medicate their security frameworks. Knowledge gaps have a real and pertinent impact on an organization's security, and without addressing this, developers may not be current on their understanding of the security ramifications of their day-to-day actions.
With developer practices potentially leading to security risks, organizations must also employ a comprehensive view of their platforms. For example, Salesforce and ServiceNow play a critical role in enabling non-traditional developers to build, deliver, and deploy, but is their role in security fully understood? Organizations must learn how to uphold security in their use of these platforms and not overlook their potential as an open window for attacks and breaches.
Overcome Security Challenges to Support Developers
A multi-faceted approach is required to avoid poor developer practices becoming the next security battleground.
Firstly, organizations must foster a security-first culture, ensuring this is ingrained into the development process. This could include automated quality and security measures, including built-in quality checks, approval gates, and automated testing, ensuring that every deployment meets an organization’s compliance standards.
Organizations should also employ the principle of least privilege, ensuring that developers only have access to the deployments and code frameworks that they need rather than wide-spread admin sprawl. Whatever platform and/or service an organization is using for its deployment, it's important to take advantage of the automotive pathways and continuous monitoring that they offer, identifying issues before they become critical.
Secondly, organizations must invest in greater education for their developers rather than leaving them to flounder against ever-more sophisticated attackers and security threats. It’s vital that developers at all levels, especially citizen developers, are equipped with the knowledge to identify irregular patterns and overcome security risks. This format will change from organization to organization, but it needs to be regular, compliant, and tested to ensure that security awareness among developers is elevated.
Lastly, organizations wanting to arm their developers in the fight for better security should only employ tools that support secure development practices. This includes code analysis tools, automated dependency management processes, and configuration management systems (CMS) to enforce greater security measures. Harnessing these tools ensures greater consistency, compliance, and traceability across an organization's deployments, helping to uphold a security-first culture.
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Turn the Tide on the Next Security Flashpoint
Poor developer practices could be the next security front issue in software development, but they don’t have to be. While it's true that attackers and hacking operations are becoming more sophisticated, we have an opportunity to turn the tide and enhance the knowledge and resources that developers have access to. In doing so, people can avoid being the weakest link and work in conjunction with technology to fortify an organization's security. By instilling a secure development mindset today, we will see the security posture of tomorrow’s software bolstered.
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