What are the most effective secure coding standards for system development?

1 OWASP Top 10

One of the most widely recognized and adopted secure coding standards is the OWASP Top 10, which is a list of the most critical web application security risks and how to prevent them. The OWASP Top 10 covers topics such as injection, broken authentication, sensitive data exposure, cross-site scripting, and more. It also provides detailed guidance on how to test, verify, and remediate these risks, as well as resources and tools to help developers implement secure coding practices. The OWASP Top 10 is updated regularly to reflect the latest threats and trends in web application security.

2 CERT Secure Coding Standards

Another reputable source of secure coding standards is the CERT Secure Coding Standards, which are developed by the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. The CERT Secure Coding Standards provide rules and recommendations for various programming languages, such as C, C++, Java, and Python, as well as for specific platforms, such as Android and iOS. The CERT Secure Coding Standards aim to help developers avoid undefined behaviors, errors, and vulnerabilities that can lead to security breaches, data loss, or system failure. They also provide examples, explanations, and references for each rule and recommendation.

3 ISO/IEC 27034

A more formal and comprehensive secure coding standard is the ISO/IEC 27034, which is an international standard for application security. The ISO/IEC 27034 defines a framework and a process for establishing, implementing, maintaining, and improving application security in an organization. It also provides guidelines and requirements for application security controls, such as authentication, encryption, input validation, output encoding, and logging. The ISO/IEC 27034 is designed to be compatible and integrated with other ISO/IEC standards, such as the ISO/IEC 27001 for information security management systems.

4 CISQ Secure Coding Standards

A more recent and emerging secure coding standard is the CISQ Secure Coding Standards, which are developed by the Consortium for Information and Software Quality. The CISQ Secure Coding Standards are based on the Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE), which is a catalog of software weaknesses and vulnerabilities. The CISQ Secure Coding Standards define metrics and measures for evaluating and improving the security quality of software, such as the number and severity of security weaknesses, the potential impact and risk of security breaches, and the cost and effort of security remediation. The CISQ Secure Coding Standards are intended to help developers, managers, auditors, and customers to assess and compare the security quality of software products and services.

5 Secure Coding Principles

System developers should adhere to secure coding standards and principles to write more secure code. These principles include minimizing the attack surface, validating input and sanitizing output, applying the principle of least privilege, using secure defaults and configurations, encrypting and protecting sensitive data, handling errors and exceptions gracefully, and updating and patching regularly. Not only do these standards improve the security of the system, but they also improve its quality, performance, and maintainability. By following secure coding standards, system developers can enhance their skills, prevent common errors, and deliver more reliable software products and services.

6 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?