What is Secure SDLC?

Secure SDLC integrates security activities into every phase of the software development lifecycle, from requirements through deployment, to build resilient applications by design.

What is Secure SDLC?

Secure SDLC (Software Development Lifecycle) integrates security practices into every phase of software development rather than treating security as a final gate. It incorporates threat modeling during design, secure coding during implementation, security testing during verification, and security monitoring during operations to build inherently secure software.

What security activities occur in each SDLC phase?

Requirements phase includes security requirements and compliance mapping. Design phase involves threat modeling and security architecture review. Implementation includes secure coding and code review. Testing encompasses SAST, DAST, SCA, and penetration testing. Deployment covers configuration hardening and security monitoring setup.

What is threat modeling in Secure SDLC?

Threat modeling is a structured approach to identifying security threats during the design phase. Teams use frameworks like STRIDE or PASTA to systematically analyze data flows, trust boundaries, and potential attack vectors. This proactive analysis prevents security flaws from being built into the architecture rather than finding them later.

How does Secure SDLC reduce costs?

Studies consistently show that fixing security defects found during requirements or design costs 10-100 times less than fixing them in production. Secure SDLC front-loads security activities where changes are cheapest, reducing costly late-stage rework, emergency patches, security incidents, and compliance failures.

What frameworks guide Secure SDLC implementation?

Key frameworks include Microsoft SDL, OWASP SAMM (Software Assurance Maturity Model), BSIMM (Building Security In Maturity Model), and NIST SSDF (Secure Software Development Framework). Each provides maturity-based guidance for incrementally improving security practices across the development lifecycle.

How does Secure SDLC relate to DevSecOps?

Secure SDLC defines what security activities should occur at each development stage, while DevSecOps focuses on how to automate and integrate those activities into agile and CI/CD workflows. DevSecOps is the modern implementation methodology for Secure SDLC principles in continuous delivery environments.

What are security gates in Secure SDLC?

Security gates are decision checkpoints where security criteria must be met before proceeding to the next phase. Examples include completed threat models before coding, SAST scan passing before merge, DAST clean scan before deployment, and penetration test completion before production release. Gates prevent insecure code from progressing.

How do you measure Secure SDLC maturity?

Maturity is measured using models like OWASP SAMM across governance, design, implementation, and verification domains. Key metrics include percentage of projects with threat models, security defect escape rate, SAST/DAST coverage, time to remediate findings, developer security training completion, and security requirements traceability.