The Role Of KPIs In Product Software Security

 Key performance indicators (KPIs) can be used in application security testing to measure the effectiveness of security testing and provide insight into the security posture of an application. Their purpose is to provide visibility into the effectiveness of an organization's application security testing program and to help identify areas for improvement. In a recent IDC survey (paywall) of mid-sized to large-sized software organizations, DevSecOps decision-makers identified the following as their top three KPIs for product security:

1. Vulnerability statistics

2. Compliance time and cost

3. Software build failures and delays

Let's consider each of these in more detail.

Vulnerability Statistics

Vulnerability escape rate is a metric that measures the rate at which vulnerabilities are introduced into an application and, subsequently, escape detection by security controls.

This metric is used to assess the effectiveness of security measures in identifying and preventing security issues from entering production. It's a simple calculation of the number of vulnerabilities that escape detection divided by the total number of vulnerabilities introduced. The goal is to minimize the vulnerability escape rate, which requires an effective combination of development best practices, code review processes and security testing tools.

Along with escape rate, vulnerability density measures the number of vulnerabilities per unit of code (usually per line of code) and is used to quantify the number of potential security issues present. The goal is to identify areas of the application with a high concentration of vulnerabilities so that these areas can be prioritized for remediation. It's an important metric since it allows software engineering teams to make informed decisions about security during development before the application is deployed to production.

Compliance Time And Cost

Compliance is critical for ensuring that organizations adhere to relevant laws, regulations and industry standards while maintaining their reputation and their customers' trust as well as avoiding legal and financial risks.

In DevSecOps, compliance is integrated into the development process by using automated security testing tools, enforcing security policies and applying best practices. This can help ensure that security and compliance are considered throughout the entire software development lifecycle (SDLC), from code development to deployment. Maintaining compliance drives the adoption of security best practices and technologies, and it serves as a catalyst for continuous improvement of the DevSecOps process.

The KPIs here are the corrective measures needed to pass an audit, the success rate with audit compliance and the time to achieve compliance.

Failed And Delayed Builds

Failed or delayed software builds can have significant impacts on a software project. While these events are a fact of life in software development, they are costly and time-consuming to recover from. Impacts can include budget and project schedule issues, poor productivity, decreased quality and low developer morale.

Five Ways To Boost KPIs

To improve KPIs for product software security, organizations should implement the following best practices in their DevSecOps pipeline:

• Provide training. Teach developers how to write secure code and identify potential software weaknesses that can turn into vulnerabilities. First and foremost, training builds awareness of software security risks and provides a foundation of best practices for secure code development.

• Improve policy management. Providing a consistent, comprehensive approach to security that is integrated into the development and operations processes is essential to DevSecOps. By defining and enforcing security policies within development and deployment pipelines (such as automated security checks at each stage of the SDLC), fewer vulnerabilities will reach shipping products.

• Increase code scans. More frequent security scans, regression tests and checks can help reduce the number of escaped vulnerabilities by identifying and addressing potential security threats that were missed in previous assessments.

• Integrate security and developer tools. Reducing tool silos in DevSecOps can improve efficiency, productivity, outcomes and return on investment. Integrating security tools with each other and seamlessly into developer workflows and CI/CD pipelines should be the goal.

• Validate open-source/third-party code. The software supply chain has emerged as a leading source of security vulnerabilities and a high-value attack vector. It's now imperative to assess and understand the risks associated with third-party and open-source software (OSS). Curating a known "safe" list of approved packages can go a long way toward reducing this risk.

KPIs can provide an effective mechanism to measure and improve product software security. Improving performance metrics, however, starts with embedding the right code testing processes, procedures and tools within DevSecOps pipelines at the very earliest stages of the SDLC.

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Article resource: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2023/03/27/the-role-of-kpis-in-product-software-security/?sh=1bcd22883f88