Justifying Security Testing in QA

You outsourced your application development to save money, right? Or perhaps you achieved it to temporarily scale your development capacity to tackle an exclusive job. It makes sense for organizations to outsource development in these situations. 

However, you can gamble the streamlined, highly optimized software manufacturer which you have hired to do your development is not putting security at the top of its priority list.

Security is an emergent quality of an application; it is not something that you automatically include by selecting a certain technology, process, or language.

Inside one application development project is a complex system made up of many technologies, platforms, configurations, and programming styles that you expect to behave the way you designed it to. If you made missteps at any point and did not properly address the security of your design, code, and configurations, then you probably have launched security vulnerabilities into your application.

When you outsource development to someone else, you have to trust actually properly accounting for the safety risk of your application. So, greetings calculating the success of your outsourcer? Most likely you are measuring--maybe even compensating--your outsourcer's ability to meet deadlines, abide by budgets, and meet minimum quality criteria. 

But did your contract include security testing? Does your outsourcer's warranty address their liability if a severe security vulnerability is found out in the production system? To be sure that your outsourced application is safe, you should require that security be a priority to the outsourcer, on double with cost and quality.

Require Security Standards Throughout the Software Development Lifecycle

In order that your outsourcer can dependably produce secure software is by addressing security issues properly throughout the software development lifecycle. Whatever process it has chosen to follow is probably not much of a concern to you, but you need to be sure that security touches every part of it.

Ask to find the secure coding standards the outsourcer follows. Find away what kind of security training is given to the developers. In case you are hiring the outsourcer since it might know more about software development than you, then you should certainly expect that it knows more about software security than you. 

Make sure the freelancer is at least dealing with the security issues detailed in the Open Web Application Security Process (OWASP) Top Ten. Figure out it uses any security weaknesses assessment products. Make the outsourcer demonstrate its security knowledge to you by showing proof of it through the process.

Mandate Security Testing

Only by tests an application can you make sure that the best requirements and designs were implemented properly. At the same time, you can only be sure an application is secure if it is tested for security.

No matter how much your outsourcer's developers find out about security and no make a difference how closely they conform to security best methods, they need to show to you that they have tested their program code and can assure it's safe.

Require Security Audits as Application Acceptance Conditions

In a services partnership, like the one between you and your outsourcer, your vendor will work to increase its performance in areas you measure. In other words, if your deal sets timelines and cost targets, your outsourcer will do everything to meet the dates and keep the costs in-line. 

If you mandate certain quality levels, such as "no Seriousness 1 defects, " then your outsourcer will give attention to fixing the defects required to get the system to an acceptable level of quality.

You should always require your outsourcer carry out security audits of the application that it delivers to you using your accepted minimum level of security risk in the system.

For best results, you should mandate the use of a third-party security auditor that has the expertise, experience, and tools required to accurately examine your application's security danger. Ultimately you must determine the minimum security risk you are willing to live with and take nothing more.