In the ever-evolving landscape of software development, it’s become absolutely paramount to ensure robust security measures throughout the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC).
Need proof? In the last three years alone, we’ve witnessed a surge of high-profile supply chain attacks, including the SolarWinds breach, the Codecov compromise, and the breach of Nissan’s Global Network. Each of these has illuminated different (but equally important) vulnerabilities that can be exploited within the software supply chain, and has created urgency amongst security teams and developers to reevaluate and enhance their SDLC security practices.
In this article, we explore the importance of software development lifecycle security, highlight common vulnerabilities, and share strategies, best practices, and tools to help organizations like yours ensure security at every stage of the development process.
Key highlights:
- SDLC Security is Critical for Supply Chain Defense: With attacks like SolarWinds and Codecov exposing deep vulnerabilities, embedding robust security into every Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) stage is non-negotiable for mitigating Software Supply Chain risk.
- The Attack Surface is Unmanageable (Without a Platform): The proliferation of DevOps tools, developer accounts, and misconfigurations has led to 71% of AppSec teams finding the modern attack surface unmanageable, demanding a shift from fragmented tools.
- Secure Coding and Automation are Essential: SDLC best practices focus on involving security from the start, training developers, and leveraging automated tools like SAST and SCA to identify and mitigate risks early in the process.
- AI-native application security platform, like Cycode, is the only solution that provides unified, real-time visibility, prioritization, and control over all risks throughout the entire software development lifecycle security process.
What Is the Software Development Lifecycle?
The Software Development Lifecycle is a systematic process or set of phases used in the development of software applications. It provides a structured approach to planning, creating, testing, deploying, and maintaining software.
The primary goal? To produce high-quality software that meets or exceeds customer expectations, is delivered on time and within budget, and is easily maintainable.
Top 6 SDLC Best Practices for Enterprises
To help ensure a secure SDLC and reduce the risk of security breaches, we recommend the following software development lifecycle best practices:
1. Involve Security Experts from the Beginning of the Process
Incorporating security experts from the earliest stages of the SDLC ensures that security considerations are embedded into the design and architecture of the software. This proactive approach allows potential vulnerabilities to be identified and mitigated before they become entrenched in the codebase, reducing the risk of costly and time-consuming fixes later in the development process.
This approach also helps improve the relationship between security and development teams, something that 90% of AppSec teams say is needed, according to our State of ASPM report.
2. Train Developers on Secure Coding Best Practices
Educating developers on secure coding practices is essential for building software that is resilient against common vulnerabilities such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and buffer overflows. Regular training sessions, combined with up-to-date resources on the latest threats, empower developers to write code that adheres to security standards and reduces the attack surface of the application.
3. Adopt a Strong SDLC Governance Program
A robust SDLC governance program establishes clear policies, procedures, and guidelines that ensure security is consistently prioritized across all phases of software development. This includes enforcing code reviews, security checkpoints, and adherence to compliance standards, which collectively contribute to maintaining the integrity and security of the software throughout its lifecycle.
4. Monitor the Software After it Has Been Deployed
Security doesn’t end with deployment; continuous monitoring is crucial to detect and respond to vulnerabilities that may emerge in the production environment. Implementing real-time security monitoring and logging allows teams to quickly identify anomalies, potential breaches, or newly discovered vulnerabilities, enabling rapid remediation to minimize damage and maintain good pipeline hygiene.
5. Update the SDLC as New Security Threats Emerge
The threat landscape is constantly evolving, making it essential to regularly update the SDLC to incorporate new security practices, tools, and threat intelligence. This includes revising security requirements, integrating new testing methodologies, and adapting to emerging threats, ensuring that the SDLC remains effective in mitigating risks.
6. Use Security Tools and Technologies to Help Identify and Mitigate Risks
Leveraging automated security tools such as SAST and SCA allows organizations to identify vulnerabilities throughout the SDLC efficiently. These tools provide comprehensive coverage by scanning for known issues in code, configuration files, and third-party components, enabling teams to address risks early and reduce the likelihood of security breaches.
What Are the Software Development Lifecycle Stages?
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Initiation and Planning
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Requirements Analysis
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Design
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Implementation
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Testing
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Deployment
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Maintenance and Continuous Improvement
Software Supply Chain vs. SDLC: Key Differences
Because we talk about software supply chain attacks in the context of SDLC security, it’s essential to clarify the difference between the two.
In short, the software supply chain comprises everything and everyone that touches an organization’s application in the SDLC, including people, processes, dependencies, and tools. It’s a broader view of the entire ecosystem that covers software creation, distribution, and maintenance. Meanwhile, the SDLC is a specific framework for guiding the development and delivery of a particular software product.
Let’s take a closer look at how they compare:
| Comparison Points | Software Supply Chain | SDLC |
| Focus and Scope | Broad and External. Encompasses the entire ecosystem of components, tools, processes, and people required to create, build, and deliver software, including all third-party dependencies. | Specific and Internal. A systematic framework guiding the phases (planning, design, testing, deployment) used to develop and maintain a single software product |
| Primary Objective | Integrity and Trust. To ensure the security, provenance, and trustworthiness of all artifacts and dependencies consumed or produced by the organization. | Quality and Delivery. To produce high-quality, functional software on time, within budget, and according to requirements. |
| Key Risks Managed | External/Third-Party Risks. Vulnerabilities in open-source components (SCA), malicious code injection during build (CI/CD), tool compromises, and pipeline integrity issues. | Internal/Code Risks. Logic flaws, insecure coding practices (SAST), configuration errors (IaC), and hardcoded secrets detection. |
| Stakeholders Involved | Wider. Developers, Security Teams, Procurement, Legal, Infrastructure/DevOps, and Third-Party Vendors (open-source maintainers, tool providers). | Closer. Developers, QA/Testers, Product Managers, Architects, and AppSec specialists. |
| Security Integration Point | Holistic Pipeline Security. Focuses on securing the connections between all phases, managing risk visibility across the entire Code-to-Cloud pipeline. | Phase-Specific Security. Focuses on specific security activities within each stage (e.g., threat modeling in design, penetration testing in testing). |
Why Is SDLC Security Important?
Secure software development lifecycle processes are crucial to protect against cyber threats and attacks, minimize the risk of data breaches, ensure compliance, and maintain customer trust.
But, given the number of attack vectors within and throughout the SDLC, most organizations have a significant gap in their software supply chain coverage. Consider how many developer accounts, repositories, or misconfigured tools organizations have that could be compromised or leaked. Historically, teams have relied on AppSec tools like Static Application Security Test (SAST) and Software Composition Analysis (SCA), but even these leave modern organizations vulnerable.
It’s no wonder the majority of AppSec teams (71%) say today’s attack surface is unmanageable, according to our State of ASPM report.
That’s precisely why Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) was introduced. ASPM platforms like Cycode give security and Dev teams complete visibility and control of their risk posture throughout the software development lifecycle, across on-prem and cloud-based environments.
Common SDLC Risks and Vulnerabilities
Attack vectors in the SDLC include DevOps tools and infrastructure, developer accounts, insecure coding practices, code leaks, and more.
| Vulnerability | Description | Examples | Potential Impact |
| DevOps Tools and Infrastructure | Tools like SCMs, build systems, and package repositories are often configured for efficiency rather than security. | – Default settings on CI/CD tools – Unmanaged dependencies | – Tool compromise leading to unauthorized access |
| Code Tampering | Alteration or injection of malicious code at any stage in the CI/CD pipeline. | – Injecting malicious code during a build – Modifying security policies stored as code | – Introduction of backdoors – Compromised software integrity |
| Insecure Coding Practices | Failure to follow secure coding standards exposes systems to risks. | – Hardcoded secrets detection – Misconfigured IaC templates | – Unauthorized access – Replication of insecure configurations across environments |
| Code Leaks | Unintended exposure of proprietary source code to unauthorized parties. | – Developer accidentally commits code to a public repo – Malicious actor leaks code | – Exposure of sensitive information – Increased attack surface for exploiting vulnerabilities |
DevOps Tools and Infrastructure
Out of the box, components like SCMs, build systems, and package repositories are configured for release efficiency and velocity, not security.
More often than not, these tools are implemented outside the purview of security teams. Because of this, DevOps tooling could be compromised. For example, organizations with tools running on their default settings instead of being managed by consistent and rigorous security policies are vulnerable to attack.
Code Tampering
Code tampering occurs when source code is altered or malicious code is injected. It can happen at any point in the CI/CD pipeline, and preventing it requires organizations to monitor all stages of the SDLC. Moreover, trends like everything as code and GitOps now store other things as code that can be tampered with, including security policies, infrastructure templates, build rules, and more. This expands the potential attack surface for code tampering beyond feature code and enables attackers to compromise more of the SDLC.
Insecure Coding Practices
Beyond software vulnerabilities, coding can introduce a number of risks. Not following secure coding best practices exposes valuable resources and enables attackers to gain access to your systems. This includes such things as using hardcoded secrets, having infrastructure as code (IaC) misconfigurations, not standardizing on naming conventions, or storing sensitive information beyond secrets in code comments.
Hardcoded secrets become dangerous when API keys, encryption keys, tokens, or passwords are exposed, and misconfigurations in IaC templates risk being replicated across many cloud environments, effectively exposing application components or data to the public.
Code Leaks
Code leaks – proprietary source code being exposed publicly either accidentally by a developer copying code to the wrong repo or intentionally by a malicious actor – present a serious risk to any organization. Not only is code an incredibly valuable asset in itself, but a code leak could expose secrets and often widen the attack surface so that unauthorized users are able to gain access to internal systems or data.
Discover the top source code leaks from 2020-2024.
How to Integrate Security in the SDLC
Software Development Lifecycle Security effectively requires moving beyond basic checks and establishing continuous, mandatory controls across all phases. This transformation, central to modern DevSecOps, ensures risks are identified and mitigated early. Generally speaking, the core components of securing the software lifecycle involve five key, continuous steps:
1. Define Security Requirements and Plan Early
Identify and document security requirements alongside functional requirements during the initial planning and design phases. This proactive approach ensures security is built into the architecture from the ground up, considering features like authentication mechanisms, access controls (Principle of Least Privilege), and data protection requirements (encryption, masking). By involving security experts from the start, organizations reduce the cost and complexity of fixing vulnerabilities later on.
2. Test Security Throughout the Lifecycle
Implement robust security testing across all relevant stages, not just at the end. This includes utilizing automated security tools that cover various aspects of the application. Static Application Security Testing (SAST) and Software Composition Analysis (SCA) should be integrated early to scan code and dependencies, while Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) and penetration testing are crucial for checking the running application for vulnerabilities and misconfigurations.
3. Secure Deployment and Environment Configuration
Ensure that the deployment process itself does not introduce new risks. This involves verifying the secure configuration of all servers and environments, implementing strict access controls for deployment tools (CI/CD), and leveraging Infrastructure as Code (IaC) security scanning to prevent cloud misconfigurations before resources are provisioned. Secure deployment minimizes potential vulnerabilities exposed during the handoff from development to production.
4. Maintain, Monitor, and Respond Continuously
Security doesn’t end after deployment. Organizations must implement continuous monitoring and logging in production to detect and respond to vulnerabilities that emerge in the runtime environment. This step involves regularly updating and patching software to address known vulnerabilities, actively monitoring security-related events for anomalies, and having well-defined incident response procedures to minimize the damage from any successful attack or breach.
5. Train Developers and Embed Security Awareness
A strong security posture relies on an educated workforce. Establish continuous training and awareness programs to equip developers, testers, and other team members with knowledge of secure coding practices and the latest threats (e.g., hardcoded secrets, XSS, SQLi). Remember: security is a team sport! By fostering a strong security culture, organizations empower developers to be the first line of defense, reducing human error and preventing vulnerabilities at the source.
Frameworks like NIST’s Secure Software Development Framework (SSDF) and Google’s Supply Chain Levels for Software Artifacts (SLSA) have been developed to help organizations integrate security into the SDLC.
- NIST’s SSDF outlines four areas to guide secure software development: Preparing the organization, protecting the software, producing secure software, and responding to vulnerabilities.
- Google’s SLSA, created in collaboration with the OpenSSF, emphasizes the integrity of software artifacts throughout the supply chain and maps three goals to five software lifecycle stages.
The Role of DevOps in Securing the Software Lifecycle
DevOps plays a critical role in enhancing security throughout the SDLC. The integration of security practices into DevOps (often referred to as DevSecOps) is a holistic approach that emphasizes collaboration and communication between development, operations, and security teams.
In particular, DevOps contributes to SDLC security by:
- Identifying and addressing security vulnerabilities at the earliest stages of development
- Promoting CI/CD practices, automating the build, testing, and deployment processes
- Defining and deploying infrastructure in a consistent and repeatable way
- Emphasizing and enabling cross-functional collaboration and communication
- Embracing continuous monitoring practices to detect and respond to security incidents
How ASPM Helps with Security in SDLC
While many tools can enhance software development lifecycle security, no single point solution offers complete protection and peace of mind. Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) is the only architecture designed to deliver continuous security in and of the pipeline. ASPM platforms automatically ingest and correlate data from multiple security sources throughout the software lifecycle, giving security and development teams an ongoing, real-time, unified view of their aggregated risk. This holistic approach makes it significantly faster and easier to detect, prioritize, respond to, and remediate issues across the entire Software Supply Chain.
A complete ASPM solution, such as Cycode, is not just another tool; it’s a unified platform that consolidates risk visibility and governance. It provides a full suite of Application Security Testing (AST) tools like SCA and SAST, delivers robust CI/CD security, and can ingest data from other third-party scanners, unifying all findings into a single risk graph. This powerful consolidation and correlation is crucial for mastering SDLC security and ensuring that DevSec teams can finally focus on fixing the threats that matter most.
Key Features ASPM Offers DevSec Teams:
- Unified Risk View: Consolidates and correlates findings from all security tools (SAST, SCA, Secrets, IaC) into one dashboard.
- Contextual Prioritization: Uses a risk graph to rank vulnerabilities based on exploitability, blast radius, and proximity to production.
- Pipeline Integrity Checks: Delivers continuous security of the CI/CD pipeline, protecting against code tampering and unauthorized changes.
- Automated Remediation Workflows: Provides developers with clear, actionable fix guidance, ticketing integration, and automated resolution capabilities in their native environment.
- Full SDLC Coverage: Extends visibility across the entire Code-to-Cloud lifecycle, ensuring no gaps in the Software Supply Chain.
How Cycode’s AI-Native Application Security Platform Secures the SDLC
The emergence of Generative AI has profoundly changed software development, with AI-generated code accelerating feature delivery but simultaneously expanding the attack surface for the Software Supply Chain. An AI-Native Application Security Platform like Cycode is purpose-built to address this new era, moving beyond simple tool consolidation to introduce contextual intelligence and hyper-automation directly into the SDLC. This platform not only secures traditional code but also governs and protects the security of the AI models and the code they produce.
Cycode’s AI-Native architecture fundamentally closes the visibility and remediation gaps that legacy tools cannot handle. At its core, the platform leverages the Risk Intelligence Graph (RIG), which acts as the “brain,” providing traceability across the entire Code-to-Cloud journey. This allows Cycode to not only detect a vulnerability (SAST, SCA, Secrets) but to instantly correlate it with its actual runtime exposure, asset ownership, and exploitability. This machine-speed intelligence is essential for tackling the scale of modern development and ensuring that security teams and developers can finally focus on fixing the high-risk, critical issues, while the platform handles the noise.
Key AI-Native Capabilities for SDLC Security:
- AI-Driven Remediation & Code Fixes: Cycode’s AI remediation agents leverage generative AI (GenAI) to provide precise, secure code fixes for vulnerabilities and IaC misconfigurations, often within the developer’s workflow. This drastically accelerates the Mean Time to Remediate (MTTR) by allowing developers to review and apply context-aware fixes instantly.
- Intelligent Risk Prioritization: The RIG integrates rich context—such as code-to-runtime exposure and Change Impact Analysis (CIA)—allowing the AI to prioritize vulnerabilities based on actual business risk, not just a static severity score. This cuts down on false positives and helps DevSec teams manage an unmanageable volume of alerts.
- Secure AI-Generated Code: The platform provides specific governance for the AI development lifecycle. It can detect the use of AI coding assistants, ensure AI-generated code adheres to corporate security policies, and provides full security testing (including SAST) on code written by models, proactively securing this new source of risk.
- Automated Policy Enforcement: AI agents are used to automate governance, enforcing security policies and guardrails across SCM, CI/CD, and IaC. This allows for automated evidence collection for compliance standards (like NIST SSDF, SOC 2) and instant flagging of risky material changes to the codebase.
- Developer Experience (DevEx) Supercharged: AI is embedded directly into the developer’s environment (IDE/PRs) to provide real-time coaching, automated context mapping, and fix suggestions. This shift from a security-as-a-blocker model to a security-as-an-assistant model significantly improves collaboration and enables developers to deliver secure code faster.
Cycode Simplifies Security in SDLC Phases
By offering a single, unified SDLC security platform that consolidates SAST, SCA, IaC scanning, pipeline security, secrets scanning, and code leak detection, Cycode gives security teams and developers peace of mind.
Book a demo today and see how Cycode can help your enterprise master software development lifecycle security.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Is the Goal of Software Development Lifecycle Security?
Ultimately, the goal is to produce high-quality, resilient, and trustworthy software that minimizes the attack surface and protects organizational assets. A mature SDLC security program ensures that the delivered application meets strict compliance requirements, maintains customer trust, and effectively defends against sophisticated threats targeting the application itself or its dependencies. Solutions like Cycode's AI-native application security platform facilitate this by unifying all security checks and providing a holistic risk view across the entire lifecycle.
When Should I Introduce Security in the Software Lifecycle?
From the initial planning, security controls must remain continuous throughout every subsequent stage, including coding, testing, and deployment. Tools like Cycode integrate into this continuous loop, providing pre-commit hooks for developers, automated scanning during CI/CD, and post-deployment monitoring. This pervasive approach protects the entire Software Supply Chain and ensures that no stage introduces unmitigated risk or breaks the chain of integrity.
How Does Integrating Security in the SDLC Reduce Software Supply Chain Risk?
Furthermore, a comprehensive SDLC security program reduces risk by enhancing traceability and integrity. Platforms like Cycode use a risk graph to map every connection within the supply chain, providing provenance for every artifact. This level of visibility allows security teams to instantly identify the source and impact of a dependency risk or a secret leak, transforming the complex supply chain into a manageable, verifiable asset that meets compliance standards like SLSA and NIST SSDF.
What Role Do Developers Play in Maintaining SDLC Security?
This requires continuous education and a cultural shift where security is viewed as a shared responsibility rather than an adversarial constraint. When security teams provide developers with timely, contextual, and actionable guidance—often automated by Application Security platforms—developers are empowered to deliver secure code faster. Their vigilance at the keyboard and their compliance with secure workflow gates are ultimately what determines the security posture of the final application.
How Can Organizations Continuously Improve Security in Software Development?
Adopting an AI-Native Application Security platform, such as Cycode, is the strategic enabler for this continuous improvement. The platform centralizes all security findings and correlates them into a single source of truth, eliminating the data silos that impede improvement. By automating low-level tasks—like alert prioritization and ticket creation—the platform frees up human security expertise to focus on strategic program enhancement, developer training, and governance refinement, ensuring the SDLC security program remains resilient and scalable.
