Blog - Shift left security strategy

Cybesecurity Shift-left strategy

What is shift left approach

The Shift Left security strategy means integrating security earlier in the software development lifecycle (SDLC) — as early as design, development, and testing stages, rather than waiting until deployment or production.

Why is it required

  • Catch vulnerabilities early
  • Reduce cost and effort of fixing issues
  • Build secure code by default
  • Promote developer ownership of security

How to

1. Secure Code Practices
  • Train developers on secure coding (and OWASP Top 10).
  • Use linting and static code analysis (SAST) tools in the IDE.
2. Security in CI/CD Pipelines
  • Integrate security scanning tools:
  • SAST – Static Application Security Testing (e.g., SonarQube, Checkmarx)
  • DAST – Dynamic App Security Testing (e.g., OWASP ZAP, Burp Suite)
  • SCA – Software Composition Analysis (e.g., Snyk, WhiteSource)
3.Secrets Management
  • Use tools like GitHub Secrets, AWS Secrets Manager, or Vault to avoid hardcoding secrets.
4. Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Security
  • Analyse Terraform, CloudFormation, or Kubernetes manifests early in the pipeline.
5. Policy as Code
  • Use Open Policy Agent (OPA) or HashiCorp Sentinel to enforce security policies programmatically.