How do you ensure that your automated security tests are aligned with your security policies and standards?

1 Define your security requirements

Before you write any security test, you need to define your security requirements clearly and explicitly. These are the criteria that your code and infrastructure must meet to comply with your security policies and standards. You can use tools like threat modeling, risk analysis, and security checklists to identify and prioritize your security requirements. You should also document and communicate them to your development and operations teams, so that they can understand and implement them.

2 Choose your security testing tools

Depending on your security requirements, you may need different types of security testing tools to automate your security checks. For example, you may use static analysis tools to scan your code for common vulnerabilities, dynamic analysis tools to test your running applications for web attacks, or infrastructure scanning tools to check your configuration and dependencies for security issues. You should choose the tools that best suit your needs, budget, and skills, and integrate them with your continuous delivery pipeline.

3 Implement security tests as code

One of the benefits of automated security testing is that you can write and run your security tests as code, just like any other test. This means that you can use the same version control, code review, and collaboration tools that you use for your development and operations code. This also means that you can apply the same quality standards, such as readability, maintainability, and coverage, to your security tests. Writing security tests as code also makes them easier to reuse, modify, and scale.

4 Run security tests continuously

To ensure that your automated security tests are aligned with your security policies and standards, you need to run them continuously and frequently. This means that you should run them at every stage of your continuous delivery pipeline, from development to deployment. This way, you can catch and fix security issues early, before they become costly and risky. You should also run them periodically, such as daily or weekly, to monitor and update your security posture.

5 Monitor and report security test results

Running security tests continuously is not enough. You also need to monitor and report the results of your security tests, so that you can track and improve your security performance. You should use tools that can collect, analyze, and visualize your security test data, such as dashboards, metrics, and alerts. You should also share and discuss the results with your stakeholders, such as developers, operations, managers, and auditors, so that they can act on them.

6 Review and update your security tests

Finally, to ensure that your automated security tests are aligned with your security policies and standards, you need to review and update them regularly. Security is not a one-time activity, but a continuous process that evolves with your code, infrastructure, and threats. You should review your security tests for accuracy, relevance, and completeness, and update them to reflect any changes in your security requirements, tools, or environment.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?