Starting Your Application Security Program
layout: single title: “5 Essential Steps to Kickstart Your Application Security Program” toc: true excerpt: “Starting your Application Security (AppSec) program doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Follow these five essential steps to build a strong foundation and protect your applications from day one.” header: overlay_image: /assets/images/post-appsec-start.jpg teaser: /assets/images/post-appsec-start.jpg overlay_filter: 0.5 —
Building a strong Application Security (AppSec) program is crucial for any business, especially as applications become a primary attack surface. Last week, we covered how important AppSec is for startups and how investing early can protect your customers’ data and help you scale securely. If you missed it, check out the post on Securing Startups.
In this post, we’ll walk through the five essential steps to starting your AppSec program, no matter the size or stage of your organization.
1. Establish Security as a Priority in Development
Before diving into tools and frameworks, it’s essential to build a security-first culture within your development team. Every engineer, product owner, and stakeholder needs to understand that security isn’t something that can be bolted on later—it must be considered from the start.
Make security a part of your software development lifecycle (SDLC). Integrate security requirements into design discussions, code reviews, and testing processes. This approach ensures vulnerabilities are caught early, reducing the cost and complexity of fixes.
2. Define Your Threat Landscape
Every organization has its own unique set of risks. To protect your applications, start by defining your threat landscape. This involves understanding the type of data you’re handling, the technologies you’re using, and the attack vectors most likely to be exploited by bad actors.
For example, if you handle customer PII (Personally Identifiable Information) or financial data, you’ll need to comply with privacy regulations such as GDPR or PCI-DSS. If your application interacts with external APIs or cloud services, identify risks in those integrations.
Understanding your threat landscape will allow you to prioritize efforts and focus on high-risk areas, similar to the approach we discussed in our post on attack path mapping and prioritization.
3. Focus on the OWASP Top 10
A great starting point for any AppSec program is the OWASP Top 10—a list of the most critical web application security risks. By focusing on these top vulnerabilities, you’ll address the common weaknesses that are frequently exploited by attackers.
Some key vulnerabilities from the OWASP Top 10 include:
- Injection attacks (like SQL injection)
- Cross-site scripting (XSS)
- Security misconfigurations
Incorporating these into your threat model and security testing will help you protect your application against common attack vectors.
4. Integrate Security Testing into Your CI/CD Pipeline
Continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) pipelines have become the backbone of modern development. Integrating security testing into your CI/CD pipeline allows you to automatically scan for vulnerabilities at every stage of development.
Use tools like static application security testing (SAST) to analyze code for vulnerabilities before it gets deployed. Dynamic application security testing (DAST) can be used to scan running applications for security weaknesses. These tools help catch issues early, improving overall software quality while reducing the risk of security incidents.
5. Use Existing Frameworks—Don’t Reinvent the Wheel
As we emphasized in the Securing Startups post, avoid the temptation to roll your own security solutions like cryptography or authentication. Instead, rely on proven security frameworks and libraries that are widely used and continuously tested by the security community.
Here are some reliable frameworks to consider:
- OAuth for authentication
- JWT (JSON Web Tokens) for stateless authentication
- TLS (Transport Layer Security) for encrypting data in transit
These frameworks are designed to be secure out of the box and can help you avoid introducing vulnerabilities by building custom solutions from scratch.
Conclusion
Building a solid AppSec program is a critical step in ensuring the long-term security and success of your applications. By following these five steps—prioritizing security from the start, defining your threat landscape, focusing on the OWASP Top 10, integrating security testing, and using existing frameworks—you’ll create a strong foundation for your AppSec efforts.
Whether you’re a startup or an established business, investing in AppSec today will pay dividends in the future by protecting your users, your data, and your reputation.
