Strategies to Reduce Business Security Vulnerabilities

The security vulnerabilities could not be completely eliminated from the system. It is a bold statement, but unfortunately, it remains true. However, there is no doubt that the security risk exposures could be reduced. Through proper training and development of the developers, the overall vulnerabilities could be minimized.

So it really sounds obvious that a business should invest proper time and resources in training the employees as well as managers. Sadly though, the companies hardly pay heed to this particular issue.

The companies have latest firewalls, malware protection, and automated code testing tools; but they scant on the basic security development training part.

 

As per a research, it was found that most of the developers and IT employees feel that the training procedures and processes within the company are inadequate. The security part in the application development or software development is always addressed late in the process, thereby increasing the costs to take care of the risk exposures.

The security professionals and developers have different opinions in regards to how the best security practices are implemented in the company, thereby implying the meaning that developers are deprived of basic training.

This takes us to the importance of developer’s training in reducing security vulnerability. Some of the most important points to be considered here include:

1. Developer’s Training and Cost Savings

These two aspects are related to each other in a number of ways. Even though developer’s training would incur some costs which are ought to have been borne by the business. The training of the developers would not help in ensuring quick cash flow for the business. In the shorter period, it will result in incurring significant expenditures. However, in the long-run, the overall numbers of security threats are reduced.

 

The monetary resources which the business would have spent in fixing the security issues would be no longer required. The savings could be invested in other lucrative projects, thereby adding value to the business operations of the company.

2. Developer’s Training and Time Savings

A significant amount of time could be saved if the company decides to invest in training and development. For example, if the quality assurance team of a business take about 30 hours to fix a vulnerability found in the system, and on an average 500 such issues are reported annually, it means that approximately 15000 hours are spent (wasted) on fixing the issues and risk exposures.

The business should try to give at least five hours training to the developers so that the risks and vulnerabilities are understood in advance. If such five hours are devoted to training, and there are approximately 500 such employees, it means that total hours spent for training would not exceed 2500 per year. It will help in total saving of 12500 hours on an annual basis. The saved time could be used for new projects and formulate new skills for the developers.

3. Reduction in Security Threats

It is needless to explain that if an IT based business is investing in training the developers, the security threats and risk exposures would be identified during the initial phases of product (software) development. This means that the number of threats which the business would face in the real time working will be lesser as compared to a situation where the company has ignored the importance of training the developers.

 

The total amount of development time loss could also be reduced. Developers trained in security introduce less vulnerability into applications, which results in lower assessment and remediation costs.

5. Improved Return on Investment

With a few hours per month or year, the business not only ends up saving a significant amount of money but also has a lot more time in its kitty. The organization does not need to invest anything extra besides the general costs of training which have proven to be a good investment option. It eventually helps in improving the return on investment for the business organization as a whole. The training should be, however, provided in a planned manner. There are a number of third party vendors which could help your business in training the developers.

This is when your business could not afford to have in-house trainers. Whether the business has in-house trainers or the process is being outsourced, the important factor is to ensure that the time schedule of the developers working on various software programs is considered. If the training related modules are introduced at the downtime of the software, it will not only help in eliminating the unnecessary wastage of labour time but will also help in best possible output from the given set of training.

Talking of the training partners, Processvenue has got rich experience in providing training to the developers and polishing their skills. Tell us about your experience related to developer’s training in the comments section.