Application Security - Architecture Insights

Secure Development Lifecycle (SDLC)

Security-Integrated Development Process

Planning: Security requirements, threat modeling
Design: Secure architecture, security controls
Implementation: Secure coding, code reviews
Testing: Security testing, vulnerability assessment
Deployment: Secure configuration, monitoring
Maintenance: Patch management, security updates

DevSecOps Integration

Shift Left: Early security integration
Automation: Automated security testing in CI/CD
Collaboration: Development, security, and operations teams
Continuous Monitoring: Runtime security analysis

Security integrated early in development costs less to fix and prevents more vulnerabilities than security bolted on at the end.

Threat Modeling

Methodologies

STRIDE (Microsoft)

Spoofing: Identity falsification
Tampering: Data modification
Repudiation: Denying actions
Information Disclosure: Unauthorized data access
Denial of Service: System availability attacks
Elevation of Privilege: Unauthorized access level increase

Best for: Technical teams modeling application threats

PASTA (Risk-Centric)

Risk-Centric: Focus on business risk
Seven-Stage Process: From strategy to vulnerability analysis
Scalable: Adaptable to different organization sizes

Best for: Enterprise-level risk assessment

OCTAVE for Business Focus

Operationally Critical Threat, Asset, and Vulnerability Evaluation (OCTAVE) takes an organizational focus with business impact assessment. It's asset-centric, helping identify and protect critical assets through a self-directed, organization-led assessment process.

Secure Coding Practices

Input Validation

Never Trust User Input

All input from users, APIs, or external systems should be treated as potentially malicious. Validate, sanitize, and encode every piece of data before processing or storage.

Whitelist Approach: Accept only known good input
Data Type Validation: Ensure proper format and range
Encoding: Prevent injection attacks
Sanitization: Remove or escape dangerous characters

Authentication and Session Management

Multi-Factor Authentication: Something you know, have, are
Strong Session Management: Secure tokens, proper timeouts
Password Security: Hashing, salting, complexity requirements
Account Lockout: Prevent brute force attacks

Error Handling

Information Disclosure: Avoid revealing system details
Logging: Record security events without sensitive data
User Experience: Helpful messages without security risks