How can you use debugging tools to identify security vulnerabilities in your code?

As per my experience veracode scan gives lot of edge and advantage for quality and vulnerabilities in code I always integrated and run scan as part of build pipeline. Similar other tools also can be used and integrated to run the code quality check like sonarQube, JSLint etc.

There are a number of tools purposed to find vulnerabilities in included 3rd-party packages as well as within the custom code itself. In my recent experience, we have implemented CI/CD / deployment processes using GitHub actions with tie-in of both language-specific code linters as well as integration of tools like Snyk into that process (as well as in the dev IDEs and Kubernetes) to search the code for potential vulnerabilities. Beyond that, regular scheduling of pen-testing should be part of the ongoing development process. There’s always more than can be done, but the above items are the first boxes to check in my mind.

I’m laser focused on getting security issues resolved before a pull request or merge request is attempted. I think it should be a requirement rather than a nice to have feature within IDE’s. An example of a nice to have extension from Snyk is free, easy to use with potential solutions included.

In my experience, I’ve found Fortify to be good in finding security vulnerabilities in Java source code. But, Fortify can be expensive especially if you are working on a team. We also used SonarQube, where there is a free version that you can download and try out.

Static scanning tools are good to catch your security vulnerability during CI/CD pipeline but most important aspect is to enforce security standards in the code itself. Given we have low code/ AI assisted coding platform, real-time security vulnerability identification while coding itself not after it goes to pipeline.. The feedback is purely from my personal and not reflect any of my current or previous employment..

For the web layer Fiddler is an awesome tool. It allows you to debug and fix the runtime code and as well performance of the web app can be improved while debugging.

You can also uses the profiler that comes with Netbeans to analyze your code for memory leaks. We also used Visual Studio which comes with different debuggers for the different programming languages!

We integrated the dynamic analysis tool Fortify into our software development process to enhance security and performance. Fortify identified vulnerabilities, such as memory leaks and access control issues, often overlooked in traditional testing. It also facilitated the simulation of real-world attacks and user inputs. This experience reinforced the importance of continuous improvement in software security and performance, making dynamic analysis tools a valuable part of our development process.

Monitoring is a very important tool when trying to secure an implementation. However, it should be implemented at the network database and application level to be really effective. Most enterprise apps are deployed through multiple layers. We have the hardware and network layers Where we monitor network traffic, io, contention, memory utilization. Down through container / VM monitoring in Kubernetes or VMware. Beneath that, there's our containerised/Virtualized machines within which we monitor our visualised operating systems and, within those our JVM and .net runtimes. Within those we have applications servers to monitor and finally our applications. Systems like Dynatrace endeavour to cover all of these areas in one monitoring suite.

DAST is really a useful technique. It’s good to run it in pre prod environment for certain period. Because most data based issue we cannot identity with synthetic or mock data. In UAT environment network monitoring using OPNet and wireshark are very useful to look for the thread safety, affinity etc

People often overlook these kind of tools as they are seen as “back to basics” however they’ve saved many engineers for many years. Taking some time to learn how to do quality debugging and properly understand stack frames & traces can actually save a lot of time and provide useful context for creating unit tests to document the problem.

Debuggers can be really useful as they show you your state at the execution point. But in terms of security problems, it can be a bit like finding a needle in a haystack in terms of pinpointing the issues. That's why good logging practices, enforced with static analysis tools, are probably your first port of call. After that, profiling tools are a good bet, especially ones that allow you to introduce instrumentation into your code. The best bet is to look at your logs, then your monitoring tools, and then run up the profiler until you've pinpointed the conditions that trigger the issue. At that point, replicate the issue, and if you still can't pinpoint the code that's causing it, turn to the debugger.

Yes we used the debuggers in Visual Studio when debugging Java, Python, C++, JavaScript and more! Also, their are debuggers in Netbeans.

In my experience, our team at work would always log events using Log4j. Once you have these logs you can go back and review these logs and do research to find security incidents. Then you can go and modify your code to make it more secure.

There is no such thing as excessive logging or tracing! You can always tune the verbosity to suit, but nothing saves the day by having the ability to trace a tricky issue using live systems as the source. Just remember to find a way to correlate the log statements together so you can trace a unique path through your code.

We recently had a great experience with Log4j, We used it to track down a security incident in our code. The incident was caused by a malicious user exploiting a vulnerability in one of our APIs. Log4j provided us with the detailed and timestamped data we needed to identify the source of the attack and take steps to mitigate it. It is a powerful and flexible logging and tracing tool that can help you track down bugs, security incidents, and performance problems. Some of its worth-mentioning features are Hierarchical logging, Multiple output appenders, Powerful filtering and searching, and Support for structured logging.

Logging should be your first port of call when identifying and fixing issues. Introduce development standards using structured logging to ensure the right things are being logged at the right level of detail. Use a log monitoring tool to monitor and raise alerts to operations about significant log events. Preferable one that provides a searchable database.

We use Gitlab and GitHub to store and share code. With permissions, team members can checkout your code to peer review and give positive feedback. You can learn a lot from looking at the way other team members code!

Manual peer reviews are a great tool. Frameworks like BitBucket provide space to have your code reviewed as part of your pull request to managed environments. It is often also useful, where possible, to implement inspections for frequently raised issues, so the static analysis tools can find these without human interaction.

Penetration testing tools are a valuable asset for any organization that wants to improve its security posture. By simulating real-world attacks, these tools can help you identify vulnerabilities in your code, networks, and systems before attackers can exploit them. Penetration testing tools can be used for a variety of purposes, including: Identifying security vulnerabilities: Penetration testing tools can scan your code, networks, and systems for known vulnerabilities. This can help you to identify vulnerabilities that may have been overlooked or that are not covered by your existing security measures. Evaluating security controls: Penetration testing tools can be used to test the effectiveness of your existing security controls.

Creo que esta mal planteado al decir la resistencia del código, ya que el código no tiene una particular de resistir o no, sino la aplicación construida con el código

It's important to find and use the right debugging tools when looking for security flaws. To find the vulnerability in the code, there are many Debuggers, Fuzzers, Static Analysis Tools, Dynamic Analysis Tools, and Network Analyzers available. Each type of tools has it's own purpose and output. Example Debugger: Use a debugger to step through the code and observe its behavior. Fuzzers: Employ fuzzing tools to inject random or malformed data into the application and observe how it behaves. Static Analysis Tools - identify vulnerabilities without running the code. Dynamic Analysis Tools: This can help in detecting memory-related vulnerabilities. Network Analyzers: This can help analyze network traffic for vulnerabilities.

Scanning and updating application's dependencies One more thing that we use is the regular scanning of application dependencies, since vulnerabilities can exist in the third-party libraries and frameworks as well.