In the age of proliferating technology and digitization, the world of software development is becoming increasingly competitive, and so the development team has to be sure about every line of code that they write. The stakes are as high as they can be in today’s’ world which is why companies need to be excessively cautious about the security and performance of their applications. On average there are about three weak points or vulnerabilities in every ten thousand lines of code that are written, and for a larger code, this amount amplifies to as high as 300 vulnerabilities in the final codebase. A couple of mistakes in thousands of lines may seem harmless on the surface, but these few vulnerabilities can negatively impact the entire application or snowball into a much larger and unfathomable issue.
Releasing an application after months of tireless work to make sure all the modules work together seamlessly is no longer a viable option, as the security code review service is an additional layer of safety that is a prerequisite for meeting the compliance requirements. A secure code review is a process which unearths the source or the fundamental cause for the security loopholes or memory leaks in the application system.
How to Ensure a Secure and Effective Code Review?
The security issues and defects which are detected in the application system during a code review have been a cause of numerous security breaches and malicious attacks and has cost billions of dollars and lost customers to companies. The underlying objective of the security code review services is to measure and detect any bugs in the authorization, authentication, security configuration, logging, data validation, session management, encryption, and error handling.
Five tips for a more secure code review include;
- Create a comprehensive checklist to ensure that the reviewers and the development team are on the same page. If not for a well-designed checklist, the reviewers might miss some important checks in the code.
- Establishing a positive security culture through teamwork and effective collaboration between reviewers and developers. It is important to refrain from playing the blame game during the review and modification process; developers and reviewers should work together to minimize the security risks and to bridge the gap between development and security.
- The code should be reviewed early in the development stages and invariably. For a defect-free software application, it is critical for the code to be reviewed every time a significant change is made. By reviewing the application code in small chunks, the team is able to save time and human effort, while improving the application quality.
- For best results, a hybrid of automated code reviews and manual reviews should be conducted on the code. The team should rely on automated review services for complicated areas of the code, while the creative ingenuity of the human mind should be used for other parts.
- By tracking and monitoring the repeated issues in the code, the reviewers and developers should be able to identify patterns and embed it in the security code review checklist to inform future reviews.
