How do you balance security testing and penetration testing with agile development and continuous delivery?

1 Security testing vs penetration testing

Security testing is the process of verifying that the software meets the security requirements and standards, such as confidentiality, integrity, availability, and authentication. Security testing can be performed at different levels, such as unit testing, integration testing, system testing, and acceptance testing. Security testing can also be classified into static and dynamic testing, depending on whether the code is executed or not. Static testing involves analyzing the code or design for potential vulnerabilities, while dynamic testing involves simulating attacks or scenarios on the running system.

Penetration testing, on the other hand, is the process of simulating real-world attacks on the software system to identify and exploit vulnerabilities and weaknesses. Penetration testing can be performed by internal or external teams, with or without the knowledge of the developers. Penetration testing can also be classified into black-box, white-box, and gray-box testing, depending on the level of information and access available to the testers. Black-box testing involves no knowledge of the system, white-box testing involves full knowledge of the system, and gray-box testing involves partial knowledge of the system.

2 Benefits of security testing and penetration testing

Security testing and penetration testing can provide many benefits for the software system and the organization, such as detecting and preventing security breaches and incidents, complying with regulatory and industry standards, improving the quality and reliability of the software system, increasing the confidence and trust of customers and users, and fostering a security culture and awareness among developers, testers, and managers. These tests can help prevent financial, reputational, and legal damages, as well as demonstrate the security and robustness of the software system by identifying and fixing bugs, errors, and flaws.

3 Challenges of security testing and penetration testing

Security testing and penetration testing can present some challenges for agile development and continuous delivery, which require frequent and fast changes to the code. These challenges can include being time-consuming and resource-intensive, introducing delays and bottlenecks in the delivery pipeline, creating conflicts between developers and testers, generating false positives and negatives, and being affected by the changing and evolving nature of threats and attacks. All of these can require constant updates and revisions, making them difficult to manage.

4 Tips and best practices for balancing security testing and penetration testing

To ensure security testing and penetration testing are balanced with agile development and continuous delivery, a holistic and proactive approach is necessary. This includes incorporating security testing and penetration testing into the agile planning and design phases, integrating them into the development and testing phases, performing them at different levels and stages of the delivery pipeline, communicating and coordinating with the agile team and stakeholders, and monitoring and reviewing them regularly. This can be done by defining security requirements, risks, and objectives, conducting threat modeling and risk analysis, using tools and frameworks that support automation, collaboration, and feedback, applying the shift-left and shift-right strategies, using different types and techniques of testing, establishing clear roles and responsibilities, sharing the results and findings, implementing the recommendations and actions, measuring the performance and effectiveness, collecting and analyzing the metrics and indicators, and updating and improving the processes and practices.