Security by Design in the Digital and Connected World
The internet is undoubtedly the most important human invention of the 20th century, and probably the most critical one ever, which we realized especially during the pandemic when the entire world could connect with each other due to internet services. Given the scale at which it has changed our life and the deep impact it has had on almost everything we do, it is no surprise that the International Internet Day holds a special significance.
With the explosive growth of the internet and the applications enabled by it, the need for securing the online assets from unauthorized access and usage has never been greater. This is where the cybersecurity doctrine comes in. Since applications are accessible from various platforms and devices, the attack surface for malicious access is significant. Hence, it is important to assess the applications for vulnerabilities and mitigate them at the earliest possible opportunity.
To make this happen, at Truminds, we follow what is known as SSDLC (Secure Software Design Lifecycle). Here, the focus is on proactively evaluating and mitigating the risks at every stage of the development life cycle rather than “patching” the application when vulnerabilities are exposed or discovered. We follow the principles of “Security by Design'' and “Privacy by Design” to ensure that user and the application data is only available to those who really need it, thus minimizing the risk of unauthorized access. In practice, this means that security assessments and impact analysis is done at every stage of the lifecycle - design, development, and deployment.
During the design phase, once the requirements are formalized, the application architecture is reviewed from the security point of view. Initially “Business Impact Analysis” & “Data Privacy Assessment” is done, followed by “Threat Modeling”, which identifies the security threats and vulnerabilities and makes recommendations to eliminate them. This is then passed on to the “Development Phase” in the form of a revised architecture and application requirements. Following the development phase, the same principles of “security by design” are applied during the last, but the most important which is the “Deployment Phase”. This involves setting up the system with minimum access privilege for all the uses cases so that storage or retrieval or updation of information is done securely. This enables to minimize the surface of attack at every stage of interaction between the application subsystems and the users. Additionally, the applications are also analyzed after production deployment using various vulnerability assessment tools.
One method of doing this is the usage of Zero-Trust Architecture (ZTA) for authentication and carrying out any transaction. “Never trust. Always verify” is the key concept behind ZTA. A simple example would be the usage of Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for users logging in, where users have to enter an additional code sent to their pre-registered devices instead of a simple username or password alone.
The biggest beneficiary of these cybersecurity initiatives are the customers who get to use an application that is not vulnerable to cyberattacks, hacking, or data theft attempts. This offers them protection against the liability in case of data thefts, application exploits, or vulnerabilities.
At Truminds, “Safety for the connected world” is one of our overarching goals. This is made possible by our extensive experience in implementing security guidelines for all the solutions that we develop and in a way this is our contribution towards a secure and connected world.
