The goal of integrating security with web development is to prevent common vulnerabilities in your application, which protects the users, the companies, and lessens the likelihood of having to backpedal in the event of a costly & time expansive security breach.
There are many hard and soft skills that security software engineers need, including: In-depth knowledge of security software, hardware and solutions. Understanding of source code programming languages. Experience with multiple computer operation systems.
The adoption of secure coding practices is important because it removes commonly exploited software vulnerabilities and prevents cyberattacks from happening. Moreover, optimizing for security from the start helps reduce long-term costs which may arise if an exploit results in the leak of sensitive information of users.
Principles to keep in mind if you want your applications to be secure:
There are some excellent books and articles online about making your applications secure:
Train your developers on application security best pratices
Codebashing (paid)
Security Innovation(paid)
Security Compass (paid)
OWASP WebGoat (free)
Rule #1 of security for programmers: Don't roll your own
Unless you are yourself a security expert and/or cryptographer, always use a well-designed, well-tested, and mature security platform, framework, or library to do the work for you. These things have spent years being thought out, patched, updated, and examined by experts and hackers alike. You want to gain those advantages, not dismiss them by trying to reinvent the wheel.
Now, that's not to say you don't need to learn anything about security. You certainly need to know enough to understand what you're doing and make sure you're using the tools correctly. However, if you ever find yourself about to start writing your own cryptography algorithm, authentication system, input sanitizer, etc, stop, take a step back, and remember rule #1.
Every programmer should know how to write exploit code.
Without knowing how systems are exploited you are accidentally stopping vulnerabilities. Knowing how to patch code is absolutely meaningless unless you know how to test your patches. Security isn't just a bunch of thought experiments, you must be scientific and test your experiments.
Security is a process, not a product.
Many seem to forget about this obvious matter of fact.
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