This topic has come up a few times this year in question period: arguments that quality bugs and security bugs « have equal value, » that security testing and QA are « the same thing, » that security testing should « just be performed by QA » and that « there’s no specific skillset » required to do security testing versus QA. This article will explain why I fundamentally disagree with all of those statements.
First, some definitions.
Today’s digital businesses are expected to innovate, execute, and release products at a lightning-fast pace. The widespread adoption of automation tools, when coupled with DevOps and DevSecOps tools, is instrumental to these businesses achieving increased developer velocity and faster feedback loops. This eventually helps in shortening release cycles and improving the product quality in an iterative manner.
Though the shift to microservices and containerized applications and the adoption of open source are helping developers ship faster, they also pose challenges related to compliance and security. As per the Hidden In Plain Sight report from 1Password, DevOps and IT teams in enterprises continually face challenges posed by leakage of secrets, insecure sharing of secrets, and manual secrets management, amongst others.
SQL (Structured Query Language) is a powerful and widely-used language for managing and manipulating data stored in relational databases. However, it’s important to be aware of common mistakes that can lead to bugs, security vulnerabilities, and poor performance in your SQL code. In this article, we’ll explore some of the most common mistakes made when writing SQL code and how to avoid them.
One common mistake made when writing SQL code is not properly sanitizing user input. This can lead to security vulnerabilities such as SQL injection attacks, where malicious users can inject harmful code into your database.
In the last post of this multi-part series, we introduced methodologies and technologies for the various compliance personas to collaboratively author compliance artifacts such as regulation catalogs, baselines, profiles, system security plans, etc. These artifacts are automatically translated as code in view of supporting regulated environments enterprise-wide continuous compliance readiness processes in an automated and scalable manner. These artifacts aim to connect the regulatory and standards’ controls with the product vendors and service providers whose products are expected to adhere to those regulations and standards. The compliance as code data model we used is the NIST Open Security Controls Assessment Language (OSCAL) compliance standard framework.
Our compliance context here refers to the full spectrum of conformance from official regulatory compliance standards and laws, to internal enterprise policies and best practices for security, resiliency, and software engineering aspects.
When you’re running a relatively small cluster, you might get away with having no structure in place for it. But with time, your cluster will inevitably scale to dozens of pods and hundreds of containers. If you keep running them carefree, you’ll deal with a mess sooner rather than later. Here’s your golden ticket to get out of this chaos: Kubernetes namespace.
By keeping your cluster organized with namespaces, labels, and annotations, you’ll avoid the performance, maintenance, and security issues that come together in a package with the lack of control over the deployed objects and services.
Finding a good web design agency is challenging, especially if you’re doing it for the first time. With so many options, it’s challenging to determine which best meets your needs.
The obvious place to start looking for a web design agency is by asking friends, family, and colleagues for personal recommendations, but bear in mind that they may not be qualified to judge your options objectively, and you’ll need to carry out due diligence on any web design agency recommended to you.
The process of researching and evaluating different design agencies can be time-consuming and complex. To make it easier, you must start with a clear understanding of your goals and expectations.
Begin by making a long list of web design agencies and freelance designers that might fit the bill. Then whittle it down to a shortlist by discounting anyone whose portfolio you don’t like — while design is about more than just subjective opinions, it’s also vital that you end up with a website you like and are proud to show off as part of your brand identity.
Now you have your shortlist, there are several key questions to pose to each potential candidate to ensure that they are the right fit for you. Here are the ten questions you should be asking to put you on track to finding your perfect website design partnership.
The first thing to realize is that there are many different kinds of websites, and as such, there are also many different kinds of website design services.
The types of website design services offered by web design agencies range from basic site creation to complex ecommerce solutions.
Basic web design services usually include developing and implementing a CMS (Content Management System) such as WordPress, Joomla, or Craft. Agencies may also provide more advanced services such as custom website design, SEO optimization, and web hosting.
Different agencies and freelancers specialize in various types of sites, so you must compare their solutions with your requirements.
Experience matters when choosing a web design agency. Ask potential candidates about the years they have been in business and the types of projects they’ve worked on. New doesn’t necessarily mean low quality — plenty of great agencies are founded by experienced designers whose portfolios are owned by their previous employers.
However, it is easier to ensure a web design agency is a good fit for your project if you can review case studies of previous jobs. Case studies will provide valuable insights into their approach and techniques and how successful their clients have been.
When it comes to web design agencies, there are pros and cons to hiring a local or remote team. On the one hand, working with a local agency can provide many advantages, such as in-person interaction and access to their resources. On the other hand, working with a remote team may offer greater flexibility, cost savings, and access to a global talent pool.
It’s essential to ask about an agency’s location to understand their services’ advantages and disadvantages.
Effective team communication is essential for any project, so you should check the working hours of any agency you select — you don’t want to wait overnight for answers to urgent queries.
Web design agencies may specialize in various industries and platforms, depending on the specific needs of their clients. For example, some might specialize in ecommerce solutions such as Shopify or WooCommerce, while others might focus on frameworks such as Vue or React.
Additionally, web design agencies may specialize in creating custom websites for specific industries, such as healthcare or finance.
Suppose you can locate a web design agency with previous experience developing websites for clients similar to you. In that case, they will be better placed to anticipate challenges specific to your project.
Before hiring a web design agency, it’s essential to understand their approach to website design. For example, some agencies may take a more traditional “design and build” approach where they create the entire site from start to finish, while others may prefer to work with an existing template and make customizations.
Some design agencies use a traditional waterfall approach, while others adopt an agile methodology. Waterfall is a sequential process in which each step happens in isolation, whereas agile is an interactive approach with frequent testing and feedback.
Knowing how an agency prefers to work will help you establish realistic expectations about how they will integrate into your company culture.
Website design agencies may offer a range of additional services, depending on the needs of their clients. Beyond website design and development, many agencies also provide SEO (search engine optimization) and web hosting services.
All reputable web design agencies will ensure that your website meets the minimum standard for technical SEO. But some agencies will also adapt your content to incorporate keywords and phrases related to your industry to help you increase website traffic once the site is launched.
When it comes to web hosting, your web design agency will help you choose the best type of hosting for your needs, but some agencies also provide hosting and will set up and manage a server for you.
When it comes to website design projects, timeline management is critical to ensure that your new website is delivered on time and within budget. Managing a website project requires careful planning and execution to keep everything on track.
You should also ask how the project will be managed throughout its lifecycle so that you can schedule your in-house timetables.
Launching your new website begins a long-term relationship with your web design agency. It’s essential to ask about their post-launch support process to ensure you have all the help and guidance you need. The agency should be able to provide comprehensive maintenance services such as bug fixing, content updates, and security checks.
Additionally, you should understand the process for making changes and requests after the website launch. Find out how quickly they can respond to your inquiries and the cost of any needed updates. This will help you plan your budget accordingly and avoid any unexpected fees.
Speaking of costs, it’s vitally important to establish ballpark figures before you shortlist an agency. Like any industry, there is a wide range of different price points, dependent not just on the project but the marketability of the web design agency.
Make sure you ask for a comprehensive quote that outlines all the costs involved. Ask for a payment schedule so you know how much you’re expected to pay upfront. Check on any additional fees, such as maintenance or hosting.
Never adjust your project to secure a web design agency outside your budget. If you can’t afford a particular provider, strike them off your shortlist and move on to the next candidate.
As a client, there are several steps you need to take to ensure that your website design project runs smoothly. You will need to supply a detailed brief if nothing else.
You should be prepared to schedule regular feedback sessions so your agency can stay on track. You’ll probably need to supply brand materials such as logos, style guides, and any text, images, and videos you want to be included. The agency may want you to sign a contract, agree on a payment schedule, and pay an initial deposit.
Hiring a web design agency is challenging, especially if you don’t have the technical knowledge to assess an agency’s past work objectively.
By asking the questions above, you’ll get a solid sense of what the company is like to work for, how well they fit your corporate culture, and whether their proposed solution is within your budget.
The more questions you ask, the better informed you’ll be, and the more likely your website design project will succeed. Good luck!
Featured image via Pexels.
The post 10 Questions You Must Ask Before Hiring a Web Design Agency first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.
This is an article from DZone’s 2022 Enterprise Application Security Trend Report.
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Building secure mobile applications is a difficult process, especially in the cloud. We must consider that mobile platforms, like iOS and Android, have completely different architectures and quality guidelines. Also, we need to take care of our cloud architecture on the back end. In this article, we will have a look at the top six security vulnerabilities, OWASP’s best practices for building/testing iOS and Android applications, and guidelines for iOS and Android. Last but not least, we will explore an example of DevSecOps for mobile applications.
This is an article from DZone’s 2022 Enterprise Application Security Trend Report.
For more:
According to a 2020 Gartner report, it is estimated that by 2023, 75 percent of cybersecurity incidents will result from inadequate management of identities and excessive privileges. To a large extent, this is attributable to the increased number of identities used by modern cloud infrastructures. Applications run as microservices in fully virtualized environments that consist of dynamically orchestrated clusters of multiple containers in the cloud.
Today, 94% of organizations are using cloud technology, and this swift evolution to the cloud means security teams are handling more data and more alerts than ever. Additionally, threats and attacks are only increasing in frequency — it’s estimated that a cyber attack occurs every 11 seconds — and sophistication. But more often than not, security teams are overwhelmed because they don’t have the right tools and approaches to handle modern threat detection at scale.
Security team leaders should have updated tools and approaches to help them protect their organization, and the best approach they can take is to adopt detection-as-code. Here’s more about detection-as-code and its benefits, as well as some best practices to help you gain success as you begin to use detection-as-code in your security approach.
Over the last decade of cloud migration, the threat model against Java applications and the way that we need to defend them has shifted. OpenJDK has made one positive change in this area already by deprecating the old SecurityManager, a relic that protected a bygone era of AOL CDs and paper maps. The next positive change in security is to strengthen the supply chain of software components, know what’s running and what’s vulnerable, and communicate this information with non-technical experts whose data is at risk.
Part of this threat model is driven by vulnerable libraries like last year’s Log4j. Although Log4j is a great logging library and was active on patching, many teams scrambled to identify where they needed to apply those patches. For individual Java developers or teams that knew their code and could deploy, the patch was simple — you updated a library and that was it. The reality though is that software moves fast and far, often leaving the locus of control of these technical experts to stakeholders that don’t have the expertise to manage a problem at this level. In a scramble, teams that did not know Java-specifics looked everywhere including .NET software and Python forums. The government of Quebec shut services down until they knew where Log4j wasn’t. This scrambling was not effective and does not protect our data.
