What security practices do 300,000 developers really do?

Published Oct 09, 2017
by Matias Madou, Ph.D.
cASE sTUDY

What security practices do 300,000 developers really do?

Published Oct 09, 2017
by Matias Madou, Ph.D.
View Resource
View Resource

BSIMM 8 is out! Fantastic. The one and only large-scale study on what security practices large organizations put in place to produce secure software.

The study is carried out by application security professionals under the supervision of Gary McGraw, making sure the gathered data is consistent, accurate and gives an insight into what 300,000 developers do on a day-to-day basis.In my latest presentation, I reference BSIMM numbers where I mention that on average, there are 2 application security professional per 100 developers.

However, that hasn't been the case since BSIMM4. BSIMM8 reports that this number is even less, now at 1.6 per 100 developers. Hiring more application security professionals will simply not work as there is a shortage of talent. More than ever, we need to give the developers the tools and the training to write secure code that is hands-on, readily available and scalable for organisations.

The report also shows that the most common activity in the Training practice is providing an awareness training to all employees at 67%. I started mapping what we do at Secure Code Warrior (SCW) in the Training practice and realized that our solution can tick off all the 12 activities in the Training practice ranging from level 1 (most companies do it) to level 3 (very few companies do it).

One single solution that can be used to cover an entire practice!Out of the 12 training practices, the most interesting practices for the Secure Code Warrior solution are:

  • Level 1: Provide awareness training
  • Level 1: Deliver on-demand individual training
  • Level 2: Enhance satellite through training (SCW metrics)
  • Level 3: Reward progression through curriculum (SCW badges)
  • Level 3: Provide training for vendors or outsourced workers (SCW Assessments)
  • Level 3: Host external software security events (SCW Tournament mode)
  • Level 3: Identify satellite through training (SCW metrics)

Are you confident that your current solution addresses these practices?

View Resource
View Resource

Author

Matias Madou, Ph.D.

Matias is a researcher and developer with more than 15 years of hands-on software security experience. He has developed solutions for companies such as Fortify Software and his own company Sensei Security. Over his career, Matias has led multiple application security research projects which have led to commercial products and boasts over 10 patents under his belt. When he is away from his desk, Matias has served as an instructor for advanced application security training courses and regularly speaks at global conferences including RSA Conference, Black Hat, DefCon, BSIMM, OWASP AppSec and BruCon.

Matias holds a Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from Ghent University, where he studied application security through program obfuscation to hide the inner workings of an application.

Want more?

Dive into onto our latest secure coding insights on the blog.

Our extensive resource library aims to empower the human approach to secure coding upskilling.

View Blog
Want more?

Get the latest research on developer-driven security

Our extensive resource library is full of helpful resources from whitepapers to webinars to get you started with developer-driven secure coding. Explore it now.

Resource Hub

What security practices do 300,000 developers really do?

Published Oct 09, 2017
By Matias Madou, Ph.D.

BSIMM 8 is out! Fantastic. The one and only large-scale study on what security practices large organizations put in place to produce secure software.

The study is carried out by application security professionals under the supervision of Gary McGraw, making sure the gathered data is consistent, accurate and gives an insight into what 300,000 developers do on a day-to-day basis.In my latest presentation, I reference BSIMM numbers where I mention that on average, there are 2 application security professional per 100 developers.

However, that hasn't been the case since BSIMM4. BSIMM8 reports that this number is even less, now at 1.6 per 100 developers. Hiring more application security professionals will simply not work as there is a shortage of talent. More than ever, we need to give the developers the tools and the training to write secure code that is hands-on, readily available and scalable for organisations.

The report also shows that the most common activity in the Training practice is providing an awareness training to all employees at 67%. I started mapping what we do at Secure Code Warrior (SCW) in the Training practice and realized that our solution can tick off all the 12 activities in the Training practice ranging from level 1 (most companies do it) to level 3 (very few companies do it).

One single solution that can be used to cover an entire practice!Out of the 12 training practices, the most interesting practices for the Secure Code Warrior solution are:

  • Level 1: Provide awareness training
  • Level 1: Deliver on-demand individual training
  • Level 2: Enhance satellite through training (SCW metrics)
  • Level 3: Reward progression through curriculum (SCW badges)
  • Level 3: Provide training for vendors or outsourced workers (SCW Assessments)
  • Level 3: Host external software security events (SCW Tournament mode)
  • Level 3: Identify satellite through training (SCW metrics)

Are you confident that your current solution addresses these practices?

We would like your permission to send you information on our products and/or related secure coding topics. We’ll always treat your personal details with the utmost care and will never sell them to other companies for marketing purposes.

Submit
To submit the form, please enable 'Analytics' cookies. Feel free to disable them again once you're done.