The One Thing Necessary for a Healthy AppSec Program
Jack Palance had the right idea in City Slickers. “Do you know what the secret of life is? One thing, just one thing. You stick to that and everything else don’t mean shit.” Billy Crystal says, “That’s great, but what’s the one thing?” The response: “That’s what you’ve got to figure out.” The converse was well-stated in The Princess Bride. “If you haven’t got your health, you haven’t got anything.”
I believe this to be true of a healthy AppSec program as well. If you have this one thing, everything gets easier. Conversely, if you don’t have it, everything is hard. If you don’t have this, it should be your top priority. It has nothing to do with the tools you build or buy. Your vendor can’t solve it for you. Automation won’t fix it. Changing development methodologies can’t save you either. It doesn’t even matter how much you understand about security. It’s something you need to build into the fabric of your company. What is it already, you ask? Accountability.
I have had exposure to hundreds of AppSec programs. I get to see them from the inside. I get the pleasure of consulting with companies to build and improve their program over time. There is exactly one thread that ties together programs that are healthy and making solid progress on risk reduction. Let me be clear that accountability as I use it is not punitive. It is based in pride in one’s work. Think of it as taking responsibility to meet the security needs of the business. It’s an internal motivator and not one imposed upon us. Typically the business holds the security team responsible for application security, but do they write the code? Why shouldn’t the people that create the problem be responsible for fixing it as well. It’s no different than making a DevOps team responsible for managing their work in production. It fundamentally changes behaviors.
Know that getting accountability in place is the beginning and not the end. Instead of pushing for compliance and putting gates in the way of releases, there will be a pull for your talent and expertise to provide clarity and assistance. There is lots of great stuff that will need to be built on this strong foundation, but that’s for another post.