Over the past three years, I have been exploring and have started to  implement Application Security (AppSec) practices in my work. AppSec  integrates security into the development process, helping developers  identify, understand, fix, and prevent vulnerabilities in their code. It  ensures security is a planned part of the application, rather than a  poorly implemented afterthought for compliance’s sake. Personally, I have found this to be the most approachable way to  actively work in the IT security area that I am passionate about while  improving the quality of my software development work. Understanding The Attack Surface The first step is understanding your attack surface and vectors.  Understanding by attack surface the sum of all possible entry points an  attacker could use, and by attack vectors  the specific methods they  might employ. You can’t protect what you don’t know is there, and it is easier to protect against threats you are aware of. The easiest way to familiarize yourself with potential threats is by checking the OWASP Top 10,  or with the Top 10 specific to your area. These lists cover the most  critical and common security risks that an application can face. Just by  going over the list, you can get an idea of what areas need to be  checked or improved, and how to test them better. Going even further and approaching this in a more structured way, we  can look into threat modeling. This offers a systematic approach to  identifying, assessing the impact, and mitigating potential security  threats. Frameworks like STRIDE, DREAD, and PASTA can guide us in better  securing our applications, anticipating attack scenarios, and building  more resilient systems. But lets remember that not everything is worth defending, especially  when the damage or the likelihood is minimal. Think of this as how home  insurance covers fire but not meteors, they can happen but how likely is  that? Leveraging Automation Automation can simplify our lives and play a crucial role in  maintaining consistency. The two main areas where we can start  automating our security practices are Static Application Security  Testing (SAST) and Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST). SAST analyzes the source code itself, identifying errors and vulnerabilities before the application is even running. Tools like SonarQube  can be integrated into our IDE or CI/CD pipeline to enforce secure  coding practices and track code quality. Also, Software Composition  Analysis (SCA) tools such as Dependabot, Snyk, and OWASP  Dependency-Check help detect known vulnerabilities in your dependencies,  which become our vulnerabilities if we are using them. The Log4J  incident at the end of 2021 is a good example of this. DAST focuses on what happens when the app is running. Tools like  OWASP ZAP, Burp Suite and Acunetix can simulate real-world attacks,  throwing structured and random inputs at our application to see how it  responds and to identify possible vulnerabilities, misconfigurations or  errors in logic. Defense in Depth There is no magic tool or solution that can solve all your security  problems. Instead, we need to layer multiple solutions, each tailored  and focused on its own domain. This layering makes it much more  difficult for a vulnerability or an attack to be successful because if  it is missed in one place, it will likely be caught in another. In this sense, code is also a layer. You can have all the firewalls  and antivirus you want, but if you leave a test account open, there is  nothing those can do about it. Final Thoughts & Actionable Advice Integrating security into the development process doesn’t need to  cost millions or require a whole specialized team. It is about knowing  the basics of your own code and how to mitigate most of the usual  problems. Integrating tools to automate checks is also recommended  because it helps avoid overlooking important aspects and having  repetitive tasks in autopilot. If you are going to do only one thing, I suggest familiarizing  yourself with the OWASP Top 10, understand what each entry means, how  and why it works. This alone puts you ahead of a significant portion of  software developers when it comes to security awareness. Over the past three years, I have been exploring and have started to  implement Application Security (AppSec) practices in my work. AppSec  integrates security into the development process, helping developers  identify, understand, fix, and prevent vulnerabilities in their code. It  ensures security is a planned part of the application, rather than a  poorly implemented afterthought for compliance’s sake. Personally, I have found this to be the most approachable way to  actively work in the IT security area that I am passionate about while  improving the quality of my software development work. Understanding The Attack Surface The first step is understanding your attack surface and vectors.  Understanding by attack surface the sum of all possible entry points an  attacker could use, and by attack vectors  the specific methods they  might employ. You can’t protect what you don’t know is there, and it is easier to protect against threats you are aware of. The easiest way to familiarize yourself with potential threats is by checking the OWASP Top 10 ,  or with the Top 10 specific to your area. These lists cover the most  critical and common security risks that an application can face. Just by  going over the list, you can get an idea of what areas need to be  checked or improved, and how to test them better. OWASP Top 10 Going even further and approaching this in a more structured way, we  can look into threat modeling. This offers a systematic approach to  identifying, assessing the impact, and mitigating potential security  threats. Frameworks like STRIDE, DREAD, and PASTA can guide us in better  securing our applications, anticipating attack scenarios, and building  more resilient systems. But lets remember that not everything is worth defending, especially  when the damage or the likelihood is minimal. Think of this as how home  insurance covers fire but not meteors, they can happen but how likely is  that? Leveraging Automation Automation can simplify our lives and play a crucial role in  maintaining consistency. The two main areas where we can start  automating our security practices are Static Application Security  Testing (SAST) and Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST). SAST analyzes the source code itself, identifying errors and vulnerabilities before the application is even running. Tools like SonarQube can be integrated into our IDE or CI/CD pipeline to enforce secure  coding practices and track code quality. Also, Software Composition  Analysis (SCA) tools such as Dependabot, Snyk, and OWASP  Dependency-Check help detect known vulnerabilities in your dependencies,  which become our vulnerabilities if we are using them. The Log4J  incident at the end of 2021 is a good example of this. SonarQube DAST focuses on what happens when the app is running. Tools like  OWASP ZAP, Burp Suite and Acunetix can simulate real-world attacks,  throwing structured and random inputs at our application to see how it  responds and to identify possible vulnerabilities, misconfigurations or  errors in logic. Defense in Depth There is no magic tool or solution that can solve all your security  problems. Instead, we need to layer multiple solutions, each tailored  and focused on its own domain. This layering makes it much more  difficult for a vulnerability or an attack to be successful because if  it is missed in one place, it will likely be caught in another. In this sense, code is also a layer. You can have all the firewalls  and antivirus you want, but if you leave a test account open, there is  nothing those can do about it. Final Thoughts & Actionable Advice Integrating security into the development process doesn’t need to  cost millions or require a whole specialized team. It is about knowing  the basics of your own code and how to mitigate most of the usual  problems. Integrating tools to automate checks is also recommended  because it helps avoid overlooking important aspects and having  repetitive tasks in autopilot. If you are going to do only one thing, I suggest familiarizing  yourself with the OWASP Top 10, understand what each entry means, how  and why it works. This alone puts you ahead of a significant portion of  software developers when it comes to security awareness.

The is an opinion piece based on the author’s POV and does not necessarily reflect the views of HackerNoon.

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