External Security Reviews
An external security review is a time-boxed, security-based assessment of software systems, applications, and infrastructure to enhance security and identify vulnerabilities. External security reviews are essential for organizations to protect against threats and build trust with users and stakeholders.
Why Are External Security Reviews Important?
According to research, significant value and data have been compromised due to security vulnerabilities in software systems. Modern applications face complex threats from malicious actors, and security issues can lead to data breaches, financial losses, and reputation damage.
Beyond preventing security incidents, external security reviews provide several key benefits:
- Enhanced Security: Find and fix vulnerabilities before they can be exploited
- Team Education: Level up your engineering team's knowledge through security best practices
- Trust Building: Demonstrate maturity and safety to users and stakeholders
- Risk Mitigation: Identify business logic issues and implementation flaws
- Compliance: Meet regulatory and industry security requirements
Scope of External Security Reviews
Security reviews can encompass multiple layers of an organization's technology stack:
- Applications: Web applications, mobile apps, APIs, and microservices
- Infrastructure: Cloud configurations, network security, access controls, and deployment pipelines
- Data Systems: Databases, data processing pipelines, and storage security
- Third-party Integrations: External APIs, libraries, and vendor services
- Documentation: Technical specifications, security policies, and incident response procedures
External security reviews are not foolproof and cannot guarantee absolute security. They represent an ongoing commitment to safety rather than a one-time event.
Contents
There are many different kinds of external security reviews, and we have some context on many of them here.