Many organisations are adopting agile product development methods to cope with dynamically changing requirements in products development. The technique embraces a Continuous Integration, Continuous Deployment, DevOps and Security approach where developers can deploy new products without disrupting users’ activities while using the solution.
Agile architectures also facilitate quick value delivery to customers. Organisations involved in agile architecture design are usually hard-pressed to meet the rising customer’s demands and also ensuring the architecture is secured, scalable and reliable.
How Agile Processes Impact Security
Software security is a profoundly rooted control culture. The application of security concepts, including access controls, input validation, and firewall rules allow developers and the end-users alike to get and maintain control, which is why they are termed as security controls.
Moreover, standardised processes are highly-valued security components as they promote order and stability. However, such a control culture tends to cause friction once security is introduced in agile architectures as the development team have a different culture. As such, just “fixing” security by imposing a specific security process isn’t the right approach. This requires agile architecture solution delivery team to change their mindset as far as security is concerned, often through aligning security objectives with the agile architecture to ascertain they work together.
Continuous Security Requirements in Agile Architectures
1. Develop a Security Framework Upfront
While agile architecture doesn’t require “Big Design and Planning” upfront, the overall architecture is a useful practice. As part of planning the architecture work, establishing its security needs and controls can help detect and prevent attacks. Such a security analysis often involves the system’s architect, security professionals, or a senior member of the organisation’s security team. The planned architecture must conform to the corporate or industry security standards for protecting critical IT assets.
2. Ensure a Defensive Design
In agile development, developers release new product versions and updates continuously as teams design, review, and modify products daily. In effect, agile architecture offers the ability to make changes and fix security issues through redesigning and faster testing.
As more companies embark on adopting agile principles in the next few years, they need to figure out how security works with the methodology. Their frequent product releases and feature changes require protection using necessary controls. During the progressive designs, developers should plan for all contingencies, such as, protecting the product against unexpected inputs or actions and minimising bugs. Failing to put in place mandatory security controls, means development teams will complete the release cycle without designing the architecture to secure itself.
3. Only Deploy Secure Code
Some security challenges are a result of design flaws. Others, however, are due to implementing codes containing bugs. Software developers should hence take care not to deploy vulnerable codes. Moreover, all code review processes should be considered as part of daily agile architecture development, with an emphasis on the security levels of the design pattern to be produced. To supplement such interactive capabilities, and to facilitate periodic code analysis, development teams should use tools for scanning security flaws.
4. Test the Security in Every Agile Level
Observing continuous security means detecting vulnerabilities at the closest point through which they were to be introduced. One of the critical components that should be part of such an approach is analysing the security of all units, use cases, end to end processes and workflows, and features. The analysis should be carry-out at the earliest possible point of a testing process. Also, security testing needs to be incorporated in every testing activity to be performed rather than leaving it until the process is complete. The need to combining the criteria for security acceptance in the quality gates used to verify if the code is ready for production.
Integrate security in user stories
To ensure an agile architecture development continuously incorporate security in each phase, security professionals should collaborate with the solution delivery teams using centred design thinking to develop a real persona functional user stories with the necessary security requirements. The user’s stories define business requirements of given system architecture and then broken to different tasks to be completed throughout the development life cycle. Creating user’s stories based on possible risks and security activities ensures agile teams continuously plan for and implement adequate security.
Conclusion and call to action
The security of an agile architecture shouldn’t even be up for debate. Cases, where breached, companies suffer millions in financial losses, should be a wake-up call for all agile DevOps and security teams. Agile architecture has proved to be highly effective in delivering and deploying quick products, software solutions, and new features while end-users are still enjoying the product. However, this shouldn’t be done at the expense of a product’s security.
CXPORTAL has, for a long time, excelled in delivering optimally secure products. CXPORTAL engineering and development teams prioritise security practices in every agile methodology level.
Backed by a group of security professionals, CXPORTAL is the preferred choice for all agile architecture solutions. If you’d like to learn more about anything we’ve discussed today, and If you’d like to learn more why not speak to us directly, call us on +442034416513 or visit our website on www.cxportal.com and we’ll help you in any way we can.
Walters Obenson
A dedicated and qualified Enterprise & Solutions Architect at CXPORTAL with nearly two decades of experience delivering cost-effective, agile digital transformations and high-performance technology solutions across diverse industries. Walters combines deep expertise in enterprise architecture, cloud adoption, and AI-driven innovation to design and implement solutions that align technology with business strategy.
