SECURE DEVELOPMENT LIFECYCLE

Whether it’s software, hardware, or integrated products, we’ll help you safeguard your entire development process.

SECURE DEVELOPMENT LIFECYCLE

We are unique in having our own cutting-edge research labs in the Americas and EMEA, giving clients worldwide the benefit of our latest findings in product security.

CONNECT WITH A SECURITY TRAINING EXPERT

Products of all kinds are increasingly vulnerable to sophisticated breaches as more of their intellectual property shifts to the silicon layer. We understand the unique vulnerabilities of the development and deployment cycle – and how those vulnerabilities differ across myriad forms of software, hardware, and integrated products.

  • As consumer demand continues to drive the adoption of revolutionary technologies, product-security requirements must anticipate the full impact of these industry-transforming shifts. Quite often, the cybersecurity protections that producers offer on their new products are not proportionate to the risks.
  • Our ability to assess production cycles for hardware, software, and integrated products is unique in the sector, and is an additional source of value for high-technology clients with dynamic product and service portfolios.
  • IOActive has long been a pioneer in product cybersecurity. We virtually created the vehicle-cybersecurity market with our original research on the cybersecurity risks of connected vehicles such as the Toyota Prius, Ford Escape, and Jeep Cherokee.
  • In addition, IOActive has been the first to identify important vulnerabilities across a range of systems, including smart meters, commercial-satellite terminals, traffic-control equipment, in-flight entertainment communications (IFEC), and various medical devices.

COMPONENT REVIEWS

Secure products are built by embedding security efforts throughout the development process.

From the start of code development, security testing should be a core part of building any secure product – software or hardware. Penetration testing and code reviews of components help identify issues early in the development process.

Our team takes a very hands on approach to helping clients build “security by design” into their development lifecycle. We love to tackle complex security challenges throughout the product lifecycle and believe the success of any SDL is leveraging the skill, techniques, and tools at each phase. Our team has a wealth of experience with everything from configuration and architecture reviews to dynamic and static analysis.

Understanding that ongoing testing is critical in secure product development, IOActive offers numerous delivery models to ensure clients at every phase of development can benefit from our highly effective and customizable penetration testing and code review services.

DESIGN REVIEW

Security by design is the ultimate goal.

Secure products are built by embedding security efforts throughout the development process.

So much of the world’s security work happens as an afterthought right before a product goes live. This not only finds things that can’t usually be fixed before going live, but also means that everything that does get fixed will be many times more expensive.

IOActive helps companies avoid this predicament by using a prescriptive Security Design Review process that looks at the following:

  • Technology stacks in use
  • Known vulnerability analysis
  • Potential design flaws
  • Data flow analysis
  • Detailed recommendations for course correction

The earlier you find flaws in systems the more secure the project will be, and the less it will cost. IOActive helps companies ensure that product security starts as early as possible, avoiding potential costs and incidents that can harm company reputation.

FINAL SECURITY REVIEW

A true SDL ensures security prior to product release.

A frequently misunderstood but critical phase of any effective SDL is the Final Security Review (FSR). FSRs are complex and through assessments of all SDL requirements as well as additional security requirements, often including penetration testing and fuzzing, that the security team requires. The process often includes examining threat models, tools outputs, and performance against the quality gates and bug bars defined during the requirement phases as well as performing penetration testing and fuzzing.

Prior to release to web or manufacturing, an assigned security advisor must sign off that the FSR is completed to their satisfaction. While many companies perform last minute testing to comply with an SDL checklist, a true FSR is well planned and includes ample time for remediation. Failure to sufficiently pass the FSR or be granted exceptions for known security vulnerabilities will result in failure to ship the product on time.

IOActive teams with our clients throughout the Final Security Review, performing through reviews as well as deep dive final testing. With a critical focus on ensuring security prior to release, we work hand in hand with security advisors to ensure issues are identified early and addressed swiftly.

PROGRAM MANAGEMENT

Building a culture of secure development.

For a company that builds software, hardware, or integrated products, the methodology they use to create them is absolutely paramount. And for many, the process is for more chaotic and accidental than it should be.

IOActive helps companies build a secure creation process through the entire lifecycle of INCEPTION, SUPPLY CHAIN, SECURE CREATION, TESTING, MAINTENANCE, DECOMMISSIONING.

Having built secure development programs for some of the most complex environments, we understand that at a minimum, companies need to consider:

  • Protecting the product idea in early stages
  • Creating a secure design process
  • Security integration during the build phase
  • DEVSECOPS-based security testing during the build phase
  • Long-term testing once the product is deployed
  • Vulnerability Management while the product is in production
  • Secure decommissioning of devices and data

Each phase of this process is critical to the product’s overall security, and IOActive provides a cohesive program recommendation for doing this across the entire organization.

THREAT MODELING

Nothing helps you protect something like thinking about how to attack it.

This philosophy is at the heart of nearly everything we do at IOActive, but it’s particularly crucial during the creation of software and hardware products.

IOActive helps companies understand the threat surface presented by a given project, which threat actors are most likely to target it, what techniques they’re likely to use to exploit which vulnerabilities, and what business impact could result from those attacks.

We understand that the value of threat modeling does not lie in a complex methodology, but in its ability to accurately modeling what will happen when that product goes live. We take a simple yet highly effective approach to

  • Deeply understanding the application functionality
  • Create a security-focused visualization of the application’s components
  • Map the attacker perspective onto the architecture
  • Identify vulnerabilities
  • Indicate which attacks are most likely for each threat actor
  • Map successful attacks to business impacts
  • Create recommended controls for each attack tree

Threat Modeling should not be considered just a Due Diligence checkbox; it’s crucial to understanding how a given system will be attacked in the real world.

Using this proven methodology, IOActive can help you secure any hardware or software product.