How do you secure your architecture and design decisions?

1 Identify your security objectives and requirements

Before you start designing your system, you need to understand what are your security goals and expectations. What are the threats and risks that you are facing? What are the legal, regulatory, and ethical obligations that you have to comply with? What are the performance, scalability, and usability criteria that you have to meet? By answering these questions, you can define your security objectives and requirements, which will guide your architecture and design decisions.

2 Apply security principles and patterns

Security principles and patterns are general guidelines and solutions that can help you design your system in a secure way. Some of the common security principles are: least privilege, defense in depth, fail-safe, separation of duties, and security by design. Some of the common security patterns are: authentication, authorization, encryption, logging, auditing, and firewall. By applying these principles and patterns, you can ensure that your system follows the best practices and standards of information security.

3 Use secure design tools and methods

Secure design tools and methods are specific techniques and frameworks that can help you implement your security objectives and requirements. Some of the secure design tools and methods are: threat modeling, risk assessment, security architecture review, secure coding, code analysis, testing, and verification. By using these tools and methods, you can identify and mitigate the security flaws and vulnerabilities in your system.

4 Document and communicate your security decisions

Documentation and communication are essential for ensuring that your security decisions are understood, followed, and maintained by all the stakeholders involved in your system. Documentation can include security policies, procedures, standards, guidelines, diagrams, models, and reports. Communication can include meetings, presentations, workshops, training, and feedback. By documenting and communicating your security decisions, you can ensure that your system is consistent, transparent, and accountable.

5 Monitor and update your security decisions

Security is not a static state, but a dynamic process that requires constant monitoring and updating. As your system evolves, so do the threats and risks that you face. Therefore, you need to monitor your system's performance, behavior, and incidents, and update your security decisions accordingly. You also need to keep up with the latest trends, technologies, and best practices in information security, and incorporate them into your system. By monitoring and updating your security decisions, you can ensure that your system is resilient, adaptable, and effective.

6 Learn from your security decisions

Security is not a perfect science, but a learning experience that requires continuous improvement. As you design, implement, and maintain your system, you will encounter challenges, failures, and successes. Therefore, you need to learn from your security decisions, and use them as opportunities to improve your system and your skills. You also need to share your lessons learned with others, and learn from their experiences as well. By learning from your security decisions, you can ensure that your system is innovative, reliable, and secure.

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?