Appsec: The gaps between Builders and Defenders

This year's SANS Institute State of Application Security Survey, which I worked on with Eric Johnson and Frank Kim, looks at the gaps between Builders (the people who design and develop software) and Defenders (application security and information security professionals and operations).

We found that more developers - and managers - are coming to understand the risks and costs of insecure software, and are taking security more seriously. And defenders are doing a better job of understanding software development and how to work with developers. But there's still a long way to go.

Developers still need better skills in secure software development and a better understanding of application security risks. And time to learn and apply these skills. Defenders are trying to catch up with developers and Lean/Agile development, injecting security earlier into requirements and design, leveraging automated tools and services to accelerate security testing. But they are coming up against organizational and communications silos, and managers who put marketing priorities (features and time-to-market) ahead of everything else.

More than 1/3 of the organizations surveyed are looking at secure DevOps as a way to help bridge these gaps, break down the silos and bring development and security together. This is going to require some serious changes to how application security and development are done, but it offers a new hope for secure software.

You can read the detailed report of the survey results here.