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Product Security in the AI-Native SDLC: Dealing with the Necessary Evil
Nov 6, 2026
x min read
Ask any product security leader what's wrong with their application security testing and you'll hear the same answer: too many false positives. Look closely at those findings, though, and a different picture emerges: the findings themselves are technically true, but their actual impact, severity, or relevance is largely false. The tools found exactly what they were built to find: real vulnerabilities in code, infrastructure and design.
What the team couldn't do was “simply” fix them. The session timeout is longer than policy because an assisted-banking journey needs it. The amount field accepts negative values because reversals post that way. The upload endpoint accepts several file types because new customers must upload scanned identity documents to open an account. Each finding got marked accepted, exempt, approved, business-justified or waived. And because nobody was going to fix it, it got filed as a false positive.
Those findings aren't false positives. They're benign positives, the necessary evil every real product carries. In an AI-native SDLC, agents write and fix more of the code every month, and agentic security testing (AST) feeds findings straight back to them. That makes the difference impossible to ignore.
False positive vs. benign positive: correct detection, wrong label
So what is a benign positive? Microsoft implemented this in their ops flow already. Essentially, when an analyst closes an incident in Microsoft Sentinel, one of the classifications on offer is Benign Positive: the detection worked, and the activity turned out to be expected. Product security hasn’t borrowed the term, yet. This means we are still stuck with only 2 main bins:
- A false positive means the detection was wrong. The risk the rule protects against doesn't exist in this context, like a missing anti-forgery (CSRF) token on an API that doesn't use browser cookies, so that attack can't happen there.
- A true positive means the detection was right and the behavior is a defect.
A benign positive sits between them. The detection was right, the risk is real, and the business needs the behavior anyway. The test fits in two sentences. If the risk doesn't exist here, it's a false positive. If the risk exists but the business needs the behavior, it's a benign positive.
What gets lost when everything is a false positive
Filing a benign positive as a false positive feels harmless. The finding wasn't going to be fixed either way. But the label does three kinds of damage:
- The risk disappears. A false positive has no owner, no expiry date and no compensating control, because on paper there's nothing to compensate for. The long session is still open on the assisted-banking route, and nothing in the backlog says so anymore.
- The tool gets blamed for being right. Take a scanner that correctly flags 1,000 gaps, 800 of which the business keeps on purpose. It gets reported as 80% noise, as if only 20% of its findings were real. Teams learn to tune out correct detections, and the findings that genuinely need fixing have to fight through that skepticism. We covered what that does to developers in the Cutting Through ProdSec Noise blog.
- Someone eventually fixes one anyway. A new engineer, an audit push or a cleanup sprint closes the "easy" finding. The timeout drops to 15 minutes and older customers get logged out mid-transfer. The reversal endpoint starts rejecting negative amounts. Security loses credibility with the product team over a finding that was never a bug.
Why the AI-native SDLC makes benign positives impossible to ignore
Benign positives used to be a reporting problem. AI agents turn them into an engineering problem, and a far more visible one.
Route findings from agentic security testing straight back to a fix agent and it does what it was built to do: make the rule stop firing. It can't tell a benign positive from a defect, because the reason the behavior exists isn't in the code. So it either "fixes" the behavior and breaks a business flow, or a human rejects the change and the same finding returns on the next scan and the next pull request. Neither outcome looks like security working.
The same failure now happens before any finding exists. In vibe coding, security requirements reach the coding agent as instructions, and agents follow policy literally. Tell an agent that sessions expire after 15 minutes and it will apply that everywhere, including the one journey where the business approved 60. A rule a human would have applied with judgment now ships exactly as written, in every repository the agent touches.
How context-aware product security handles benign positives
A better label is only the start. What's missing is the context to decide what a correct finding should become. That context exists, but it's scattered.
It lives in design documents, product requirements and Jira tickets. It lives in the user flows and customer journeys the application supports, and in the business analysis behind them. It lives in security requirements, partner specifications, related source code in other services, and the memory of a few senior engineers. Only something that reads all of it can recognize a benign positive.
That's the approach we're taking at Prime. Before a correct finding turns into a ticket, Prime checks the finding against the code, the infrastructure, the user journeys and the business documents around it, using five questions. Was the deviation deliberate? Does a real business flow depend on it? Would the standard fix break current business logic? Is the deviation as narrow as the need? What limits the risk today?
The answers lead to one of four outcomes:
- Fix when the gap is a defect. An AI agent can do it only if the fix leaves business behavior unchanged.
- Narrow when the business needs the behavior in one place but it leaked everywhere. Keep it where it's needed and fix the rest.
- Compensate when the deviation can't shrink further. That means a scoped exception with an owner and an expiry, plus controls around it.
- Ask when the evidence doesn't settle it. One question goes to the product owner, in product terms, and the answer is reused.
Two rules sit underneath. First, benign positives go to the person who can decide what the product should do, usually a product or business owner, never straight to a fix agent.
Second, when a preventive control can't be put in place, fixed or narrowed, detective and corrective controls take over its job by design. Take the long session. If it can't be shortened, nothing stops an unattended session from being misused, so the goal becomes catching misuse fast. An alert fires when a transfer follows a long idle period, and the transfer is held until the customer confirms it. Detection and a quick response stand in for the block that couldn't be built.
None negotiable, or must-have list of controls, like encrypting card data and authenticating money movement, never gets an exception at all.
Five findings, five decisions
Let’s take a look at a few examples taken from an imaginary fintech. The first two come from cloud and data scanners, because benign positives aren't limited to code; the other three come from code.
The admin role the CNAPP flagged. A CNAPP tool correctly flags an IAM role with administrator rights that hasn't been used in months, and its standard fix is to remove it. Prime checks it against the approved design: it's the documented break-glass role for disaster recovery, owned by the platform team, so it's a benign positive, and removing it would leave no way in during an outage.
The public bucket the DSPM tool flagged. A DSPM tool correctly finds personal data in a public storage bucket but can't tell why it's there. Prime adds the context: if the business requires it by design, with the product manager who owns it, it's a benign positive; if not, it's a drift from the design to fix.
The 60-minute session. The standard says 15 minutes. The assisted-banking journey, where an older customer completes a transfer with a caregiver, needs longer. Prime narrows the deviation to that journey and keeps 15 minutes everywhere else. Around it go step-up authentication on transfers and new payees, a hard limit on total session length, and an alert when a sensitive action follows a long idle period.
The free-text field that can't be validated. Strict input validation would allowlist what a dispute note or payment memo may contain. But customers and investigators paste multilingual text, copied emails and evidence, so no allowlist fits. Prime compensates: limits on length and allowed characters stay, while the real protection moves to where the data is used. Queries are parameterized and output is encoded for its context. A content security policy backs that up, and injection patterns in those fields raise an alert.
The upload that accepts more than one file type. The scanner flags an endpoint that takes PDF, JPEG and TIFF files. New customers need all three to upload the identity documents required to open an account. Prime narrows the rule instead of dropping it: exactly those three types, checked by content rather than file extension. Uploads are virus-scanned, size-capped, stored outside the web root and re-rendered before anyone opens them.
What this means for product security leaders
Start with the pile you already have. Pull last quarter's false positives and sort them with the two-sentence test. If a large share turns out to be benign positives, two things are true at once. Your tools aren't as noisy as your metrics say, and your accepted risk is larger than your risk register says.
Then separate the two questions every finding raises. Whether a detection is correct is one field. What to do about it is another. Measure your tools on the first and run your program on the second.
Finally, keep benign positives away from automation until someone with authority has decided. An AI fix agent is a great tool for a missing parameterized query. It's the wrong tool for a behavior someone in the business chose on purpose. And whatever your coding agents are told to enforce should carry its exceptions with it.
From dismissal to decision
Calling a correct finding a false positive was always a shortcut. In an AI-native SDLC, where agents write and fix code at scale, it's a shortcut that breaks things. The detection was right. What was missing was the context to decide what the finding should become, and who should decide it.
At Prime, that context runs from the design before the code, through the code as it's written, to the system after it ships. It's what lets a benign positive become a scoped, owned decision instead of a quiet dismissal.
Ready to find out how many of your "false positives" are really benign positives? Learn more at primesec.ai.
Why Is There a Giant Inflatable Zeus Riding a Cybertruck in San Francisco?
Blog
Nov 5, 2026
x min read
Superman cape. Greek mythology. Tesla Cybertruck. OWASP Global AppSec 2026. We have some explaining to do.
First, we'd like to confirm that you did, in fact, see a giant inflatable Greek god riding a Tesla Cybertruck through San Francisco.
Yes, that's Zeus. The Greek god of thunder. Currently experiencing something of an identity crisis, judging by the Superman cape.
No, it's not a movie promotion. No, Tesla didn't suddenly discover Greek mythology. And no, Superman hasn't traded the Fortress of Solitude for Mount Olympus.
It's Prime Security.
We're at OWASP Global AppSec 2026, and apparently bringing another retractable banner wasn't going to cut it.
Now that we have your attention, let's talk about something considerably more absurd than a Greek god dressed as a superhero riding a Cybertruck: the way we're still securing software in the age of AI.
The gods have changed. The rules haven't.
AI agents are writing code, choosing dependencies, shaping architectures, and connecting systems at speeds that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago.
Meanwhile, much of Product Security is still operating on the assumption that humans write code, security tools scan it, and other humans sort through the findings.
More code. More scans. More alerts. More dashboards.
More of everything except actual understanding.
At Prime Security, we're building for a different reality. One where security understands the architecture, guides decisions before code is written, reviews code as it's created, and continuously validates what's actually exploitable.
Before the code. In the code. After the code.
So why Zeus? And why the Superman cape?
Greek mythology is full of powerful gods making terrible decisions with spectacular consequences.
Surprisingly relevant to modern software.
But we're not going to pretend a giant inflatable Greek god on a Cybertruck is some profound metaphor for our technology.
Sometimes you do something outrageous because you want people to look.
And once they're looking, you better have something worth saying.
Here's ours:
AI has changed who builds software. It's time to change who secures it.
Zeus may have an identity crisis. Product Security doesn't have that luxury.
Think you can handle the gods? Play the game.
The Vulnerabilities You Will Never Fix
Blog
Oct 9, 2026
x min read
Security teams tolerated noisy scanners for twenty years. False positive rates that would get a tool thrown out of any other engineering discipline became routine in AppSec, and everyone made peace with it, because a human could always work the queue. Slowly. Painfully. But the queue got worked.
That peace is ending, and I hear it in every conversation with a security leader. Their scanners didn't get worse. The code got faster.
The number of vulnerabilities never mattered
False positive rate is easy to measure, so it became the number vendors compete on. Run a bake-off, count the bad findings, pick a winner.
Except nobody tolerated the rate because it was fine. They tolerated it because a human could still clear the queue. That was the only number that ever mattered: not how many findings a SAST scanner produced, but whether the team could get to the end of them. That worked at 100 PRs a week. Put the same scanner on 300 PRs and the same rate buries the team, while the number on the vendor's slide hasn't changed at all.
To be clear, finding vulnerabilities is good. The problem is what the scanner calls a vulnerability. A SQL injection pattern in a function nobody can reach is not a vulnerability, it's a bug. Software is full of bugs. Any codebase of real size has thousands of them nobody will ever fix, and nobody loses sleep over that. The scanner takes a few hundred of those bugs, labels them critical, and puts them in a queue your team is now accountable for.
Email security went through this already (to be fair, it’s going through this again now). Keyword spam filters flagged "free" and "win," caught plenty of real mail, and nobody cared while inboxes were small. Then volume exploded, the same error rate produced an unrecoverable pile of mistakes, and keyword matching died. Bayesian filtering replaced it. SAST ran the identical arc: untuned tools shipped false positive rates above 90 percent, teams hired humans to triage, and the arrangement held for one reason only. Code volume stayed inside what humans could process.
We have more code now.
Cursor says enterprise customers are pushing 25 percent more PRs and the PRs are twice as big. Microsoft says engineers with coding agents merge 24 percent more per day. I don't need the studies. I sit with product security leaders every week and the number they give me is their own: double, sometimes triple, in under a year, with the same three people on the AppSec team.
So teams are trying to solve it.
The first move is always headcount or another tool. I've watched it a dozen times and I've never seen it close the gap, because you get one more person and the engineering org gets Cursor.
The scanner they bought in 2021 is still running. Accuracy is improving with AI overlays, just not fast enough, so a lot of ProdSec teams default to building something homegrown that "cleans up" or "validates" scanner output. They are now paying twice. Once for the scanner, and again in tokens to make its results usable.
And the results are the same. The scanner still has no idea whether the thing it flagged can be reached. Cleaning the queue faster just gets you to the bottom of the same queue, and the real one you were worried about is still somewhere in it.
So what matters today? Attacks.
Once the queue is the constraint, what's in it matters more than how long it is. The only findings worth an engineer's time are the ones an attacker can actually use.
Knowing that takes context a scanner never has: how the system is designed, where the code runs, what data it touches, which components talk to each other, and whether there's a real path from entry point to payload. A scanner flags a line. It cannot tell you if the line is reachable.
That is what Prime is built to answer. Prime keeps shared context across architecture, code, and infrastructure and reasons to exploitability before anything hits the queue. Findings are attack paths, not flagged lines. Customers see 100 criticals become 3. The 3 get fixed. The other 97 were never going to be, no matter how many people were working the queue.
So what's next for product security leaders?
Stop running bake-offs on false positive rate. The number is real. It is also the wrong number. It tells you how clean the queue is, not whether your team will ever reach the bottom of it, and the bottom is where the problem lives.
Ask a different question. How many of these findings can an attacker actually use, and how does that number move when my engineers ship twice the code next year? If the answer goes up with volume, the tool is counting bugs and calling them vulnerabilities.
Finding them was never the problem. The scanner found every one. It also found the 3,000 bugs sitting on top of them, and your team is going to work that queue top to bottom until the day someone outside the company finds the real one first.
See how Prime uses persistent context to identify real exploit paths and reduce security noise at primesec.ai.
External sources worth linking
- Cursor for EnterpriseSource for the PR volume (+25%) and average PR size (+100%) statistics cited in the 'Code Volume and Change Frequency' section.cursor.com
- Microsoft Study Finds AI Coding Agents Lift Pull Requests by 24%Source for the Microsoft research stat on merged pull requests per engineer per day.techrepublic.com
- SAST False Positives: 91% Are Noise. Here's the FixSource for untuned-vs-tuned SAST false-positive rate ranges cited in the historical section.pixee.ai
- The History of Spam Email: Origins, Evolution, and ImpactSource for the early-2000s spam-as-share-of-email-traffic claim used in the historical parallel.spaceship.com
Blog
CRA Security-by-Design Compliance Handbook
Jan 28, 2026
x min read
The Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) is the European Union's most significant product security regulation since GDPR. Formally adopted as Regulation (EU) 2024/2847, the CRA establishes mandatory cybersecurity requirements for all products with digital elements sold in the EU market. Non-compliance carries penalties up to €15 million or 2.5% of global annual turnover, and products that fail conformity assessment lose EU market access entirely.
Unlike previous frameworks focused on organizational security practices, the EU CRA is product-centric. Every software product must prove security throughout its lifecycle to receive CE marking, which signifies that products sold in the EEA (European Economic Area) have been assessed to meet high safety, health, and environmental protection requirements. For security leaders, this regulation formalizes a long-standing principle: security must be considered at the design phase, not retrofitted after implementation. This guide explains what the CRA requires, who it affects, and how to build compliant practices.
Executive Summary
What the EU CRA Regulates
- All products with digital elements: standalone software, IoT devices, firmware, SDKs, and connected hardware
- Applies to any organization selling to EU customers, regardless of headquarters location
- SaaS products with downloadable components (browser extensions, SDKs, agents) are in scope
Key Compliance Dates
- September 2026: Mandatory vulnerability reporting to ENISA begins
- December 2027: Full compliance with all essential requirements
Security by Design is the Essential New Mandate
- The regulation requires documented evidence that security was addressed during “design and development”
- Traditional AppSec tools (SAST, SCA, DAST) operate after code exists and cannot satisfy this requirement
- This design-stage gap is unique to CRA; other regulations (NIS2, DORA, ISO 27001) do not require it
What Organizations Must Do
- Inventory and classify all products by CRA risk tier
- Implement design-stage security review with documented evidence
- Establish vulnerability handling and ENISA reporting processes
- Generate SBOMs and technical documentation for conformity assessment
What Is the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA)?
The Cyber Resilience Act is an EU regulation setting mandatory cybersecurity requirements for all products with digital elements sold in the European market. Formally adopted as Regulation (EU) 2024/2847 and entering into force on December 10, 2024, the CRA represents the most far-reaching product security regulation the EU has enacted. It is product-centric, requiring every software product, from standalone applications to embedded firmware to SDK components, to prove security throughout its entire lifecycle, from initial design through end-of-life support.
Why Was the EU Cyber Resilience Act Introduced?
Product security failures have grown too consequential and too widespread for voluntary standards to fix. When connected devices reach hundreds of millions of households and businesses, a single architectural shortcut can cascade into infrastructure-level disruption. As shown by the October 2016 Dyn attack, attackers compromised over 600,000 IoT devices by exploiting factory-made usernames and passwords, leaving services like Twitter, Netflix, GitHub, and others unreachable for hours.
The vulnerability was not a coding error that testing would have caught but a product design decision. Although GDPR covers the handling of personal data and NIS2 covers critical infrastructure network security, neither imposes obligations on the manufacturers whose design choices created the attack surface in the first place. The CRA fills this gap by making secure-by-design a legal requirement at the point of manufacture, documented and auditable before products reach the market.
What Makes the EU CRA Different From Other Regulations?
The CRA differs from NIS2, DORA, and ISO 27001 in one key way: it regulates products, not organizations. While NIS2 requires essential service operators to implement security measures, and ISO 27001 certifies organizational security management systems, the CRA requires each individual product to meet specific security requirements and undergo conformity assessment before receiving CE marking for EU market access.
This product-level focus means compliance cannot be achieved through organizational policies alone. Each product requires documented evidence that security was considered and implemented throughout its development, starting at the design phase.
What are the Key Dates You Should Know?
The CRA follows a phased implementation timeline:
| Date | Milestone |
|---|---|
| December 10, 2024 | CRA enters into force |
| September 11, 2026 | Vulnerability reporting obligations begin |
| December 11, 2027 | Full compliance required for all essential requirements |
Why the September 2026 Deadline Matters:
While December 2027 is the full compliance deadline, September 2026 introduces mandatory vulnerability reporting. This means organizations need:
- Documented vulnerability handling processes
- Established reporting channels to ENISA
- Systems for detecting actively exploited vulnerabilities
- Evidence of ongoing security monitoring
For companies selling to EU customers, this provides an implementation window to build the practices that form the foundation of CRA compliance, including design-stage security reviews.
Penalties for Non-Compliance
The CRA establishes a tiered penalty structure based on violation severity:
| Violation Type | Maximum Penalty |
|---|---|
| Essential requirements violations | €15 million or 2.5% of global annual turnover |
| Other obligation violations | €10 million or 2% of global annual turnover |
| Incorrect or incomplete information | €5 million or 1% of global annual turnover |
Beyond financial penalties, non-compliance affects:
- CE marking eligibility and EU market access
- Product availability (potential withdrawal or recall requirements)
- Customer confidence in your security practices
Which Organizations Must Comply with the CRA?
The CRA specifically calls out four classifications of software providers:
- Manufacturers
Organizations that design, build, or brand products bear primary responsibility for CRA compliance.
This includes:
- Software publishers selling to EU customers
- Hardware manufacturers with embedded software
- Companies that white-label or rebrand products
- Organizations that substantially modify existing products
- Importers
Entities that bring products from outside the EU into the EU market must verify compliance before distribution.
- Distributors
Entities in the supply chain that make products available.
- Open Source Considerations
Open source software developed outside commercial activity is generally exempt.
However:
- Commercial products using open source components must ensure those components meet CRA requirements
- Any open source integrated into commercial products becomes the manufacturer's responsibility
Does the CRA apply to companies outside the EU?
Yes. The CRA applies to any entity that places products with digital elements on the EU market, regardless of where that organization is headquartered. Non-EU manufacturers must comply with all essential requirements to receive CE marking and maintain EU market access.
Which Products Are Impacted by the CRA?
The CRA applies to products with digital elements (PDEs), defined as any software or hardware product that connects directly or indirectly to a device or network. The scope is deliberately broad to cover the interconnected nature of modern digital products.
Products in Scope:
- Standalone software applications (desktop, mobile, and web applications with downloadable components)
- Operating systems and firmware
- IoT devices and connected hardware
- Software libraries, SDKs, and APIs distributed as components
- Industrial control systems and OT equipment
- Network equipment (routers, switches, firewalls)
- Consumer electronics with data connectivity
What about SaaS Products?
Pure SaaS offerings, where no software component is downloaded or installed, are generally excluded from the CRA's scope. However, most modern SaaS products include downloadable elements that bring them into scope:
- Browser extensions or plugins
- Desktop or mobile companion apps
- Agent software for integrations
- SDKs provided to customers
- CLI tools or development utilities
If your SaaS product includes any downloadable component, that component falls under CRA requirements, and the security of that component must be proven through design-stage practices.
How does CRA Classify Products and Risk Tiers?
The CRA establishes risk categories with corresponding compliance requirements:
| Category | Examples | Assessment |
|---|---|---|
| Default (non-critical) | Most software applications | Self-assessment |
| Important Class I | Identity management, browsers, password managers | Self-assessment with harmonized standards or third-party |
| Important Class II | Hypervisors, firewalls, HSMs, smartcard readers | Mandatory third-party assessment |
| Critical | Smart meters, smartcards, secure elements | European cybersecurity certification |
What is required for CRA conformity assessment?
CRA conformity assessment requirements depend on product risk classification. Default (non-critical) products allow self-assessment. Important Class I products can self-assess with harmonized standards or use third-party assessment. Important Class II products require mandatory third-party assessment by notified bodies. Critical products require European cybersecurity certification.
What Are the Essential CRA Security Requirements?
The CRA's essential requirements are defined in Annex I of the regulation and are divided into two categories: security requirements for the product itself, and vulnerability handling requirements for ongoing support.
Part I: Security Requirements for Products
1. Security by Design
Products must be "designed, developed and produced" with appropriate cybersecurity levels based on risk assessment. This requires documented evidence that security was considered during architectural decisions, not added after implementation. The regulation states:
"Products with digital elements shall be designed, developed and produced in such a way that they ensure an appropriate level of cybersecurity based on the risks." (CRA Annex I, Section 1.1)
2. Secure Default Configuration
Products must ship with secure settings by default: least-privilege access, no default credentials, and hardened configurations aligned to intended use. Configurations that require user action to become secure do not meet this requirement.
3. Data Protection
Products must ensure confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data through appropriate mechanisms including encryption, access controls, and data minimization.
4. Resilience and Availability
Products must resist denial-of-service attacks and minimize negative impacts on other network resources.
5. Attack Surface Minimization
Products must minimize external interfaces, disable unnecessary services, and limit the impact of potential compromises through segmentation and containment.
6. Software Bill of Materials (SBOM)
Manufacturers must identify and document all software components, including dependencies, in a machine-readable format — either SPDX or CycloneDX.
Part II: Vulnerability Handling Requirements
- Establish coordinated vulnerability disclosure policies
- Document and remediate vulnerabilities without delay
- Apply effective and regular tests and reviews of product security
- Provide security updates for minimum 5 years or expected product lifetime
- Report actively exploited vulnerabilities to ENISA within 24 hours
Why Security-by-Design Is Core to the CRA Mandate?
The CRA's most consequential requirement is not SBOM generation or vulnerability scanning. It is the mandate for security by design. Article 13 requires manufacturers to "exercise due diligence when integrating components" and ensure products are "designed, developed and produced in accordance with essential requirements." The regulation specifies:
"Manufacturers should therefore ensure that all products with digital elements are designed and developed in accordance with the essential cybersecurity requirements laid down in this Regulation." (CRA (9))
What does Security-by-Design Mean Under the CRA?
Security by design under the CRA means integrating security considerations from the earliest product development phases, during architectural decisions and feature design, not retrofitting security after implementation. The regulation requires documented evidence that security was considered during design, rather than tested only after development.
"Products with digital elements shall be designed, developed and produced in such a way that they ensure an appropriate level of cybersecurity based on the risks." (CRA Annex I)
We continue to see an acceleration in the amount of focus that the design stage is getting from a cybersecurity risk management perspective, driven not solely by this act, but by global cybersecurity organizations and regulators alike.
The Design-Stage Gap
Most organizations have to this point invested substantially in code-level security tools:
- Static Application Security Testing (SAST) finds vulnerabilities in written code
- Software Composition Analysis (SCA) identifies risks in dependencies
- Runtime Application Security Testing (DAST) uncovers vulnerabilities in running applications
These tools serve important purposes, but they operate after code exists.
The CRA asks a different question: What security decisions were made when this feature was designed?
When a feature moves from specification to implementation, the security-relevant decisions happen early. What data will this access? How will authentication work? What happens if this component is compromised? By the time code exists to scan, these architectural decisions are already made.
Answering the CRA's design-stage question requires security review during the design phase, with documented evidence that can satisfy conformity assessment. This creates a gap for most organizations: they have tooling for code-level security, but not for design-stage security review.
CRA Requirements vs. Traditional Tools and Other Regulations
The CRA creates new compliance obligations that existing tools and regulations do not cover:
| CRA Requirement | Traditional AppSec Tools | Other Regulations (NIS2, DORA, ISO 27001, etc.) | Compliance Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Security considered during design phase | Not Addressed | Not Required | CRA-Specific Gap |
| Documented architectural security decisions | Not Addressed | Not Required | CRA-Specific Gap |
| Risk assessment before implementation | Not Addressed | Organizational risk assessment (not product-level) | CRA-Specific Gap |
| Code vulnerability detection | SAST, DAST, SCA | ISO 27001, DORA, NIS2 | Best-Practice / Covered |
| Software Bill of Materials | SCA tools | Federal (US) [EO 14028, FedRAMP, some sectoral [PCI DSS, FDA Section 524B], DORA | Best-Practice / Covered |
| Vulnerability disclosure and handling | Detection only | NIS2 incident reporting | Partially Covered |
| Product-level conformity assessment evidence | Scan reports (code-level only) | ISO 27001 (org-level, not product) | CRA-Specific Gap |
These security-by-design requirements create the primary compliance gap organizations must close.
How Does Prime Security Handle CRA Compliance?
Prime Security's Agentic Security Architect closes the design-stage gap by bringing security review to where the CRA requires it: before code is written. Prime identifies security risks in planned work and creates the documented evidence that conformity assessment requires.
Design-Stage Security Review: Prime's Approach
Prime analyzes feature specifications, architectural decisions, and integration plans as they are created, not after they are implemented.
When a developer writes a Jira ticket describing a new feature, Prime automatically:
- Identifies security-relevant changes that warrant review
- Analyzes architectural implications including data flows, authentication requirements, and attack surface changes
- Generates security recommendations specific to the proposed design
- Creates documented evidence of security review for CRA compliance
This shifts security review to where the CRA requires it, the design phase, while ensuring consistent coverage across all development activity.
Manual security design reviews can satisfy CRA requirements in theory. In practice, they create an impossible tradeoff. The CRA demands documented security consideration for every feature across every product. Achieving full coverage manually means either hiring a security architect for every development team or slowing releases to a crawl while a small team reviews everything. Most organizations end up with partial coverage and gaps in their conformity documentation.
Prime resolves this tradeoff. By automating design-stage review, organizations achieve the continuous coverage CRA requires without blocking development. Security teams maintain oversight and make final decisions, but the baseline analysis and documentation happens automatically, at the pace of development.
| CRA Compliance Metric | Existing, Manual Processes | With Prime |
|---|---|---|
| Feature review coverage | 10-30% | 100% |
| Security monitoring frequency | Periodic or ad-hoc | Continuous |
| Development velocity impact | Significant slowdown for full coverage | Accelerated |
| Audit documentation readiness | Incomplete with gaps | Complete and audit-ready |
How Prime Helps Companies Meet Specific CRA Requirements?
Security by Design (Annex I, Part I)
The CRA requires that products "be designed, developed and produced in such a way that they ensure an appropriate level of cybersecurity based on the risks."
Prime ensures that security teams are able appropriately manage the risks of every project by making sure that features are designed securely from the beginning.
Risk Assessment (Statement 37)
The CRA also mandates that “ Manufacturers should ensure that software made available under those conditions is released only following a risk assessment and that it complies to the extent possible with the security requirements relating to the properties of products with digital elements laid down in this Regulation.”
Prime's agent assesses the risk of both new components and existing software based on the rules and regulations set out by each individual company, regardless of size or industry..
Due Diligence on Components (Article 13.5)
The regulation requires manufacturers to "exercise due diligence when integrating components sourced from third parties."
When development plans include third-party integrations, Prime analyzes the security implications of those integrated design decisions.
Effective and Regular Testing (Annex I, Part II)
The CRA mandates that manufacturers "apply effective and regular tests and reviews of the security of the product."
Prime fits into your existing workflows between security and engineering, continuously reviewing development activity.
Technical Documentation (Article 31)
“The technical documentation shall contain all relevant data or details of the means used by the manufacturer to ensure that the product with digital elements and the processes put in place by the manufacturer comply with the essential cybersecurity requirements set out in Annex I.”
Prime creates persistent, auditable records of security decisions, recommendations, and reviews, producing the documentation required for conformity assessment and market surveillance.
How does EU CRA Compare to Other Cybersecurity Regulations?
CRA vs. NIS2
NIS2 (Directive 2022/2555) applies to essential and important entities operating critical infrastructure and requires organizational security measures, incident reporting, and supply chain security. The CRA applies to products regardless of who uses them.
The key differences:
- NIS2 is entity-focused while CRA is product-focused
- NIS2 requires organizational policies while CRA requires product-level conformity
- NIS2 allows member state variation while CRA is directly applicable EU-wide
Most organizations that need to comply with NIS2 will also need to comply with CRA. A software company providing products to healthcare organizations might need NIS2 compliance as an important entity and CRA compliance for each product sold.
CRA vs. DORA
The Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) focuses on financial entities with requirements for ICT risk management, incident reporting, and third-party risk management.
While DORA regulates organizational resilience, CRA focuses on product security. Financial services companies subject to DORA that also manufacture software products need CRA compliance for those products in addition to DORA compliance for their operations.
CRA vs. ISO 27001
ISO 27001 is a voluntary certification for information security management systems. The CRA is mandatory regulation with legal enforcement. ISO 27001 certification can support CRA compliance by showing mature security practices, but does not substitute for product-level conformity assessment and technical documentation.
FAQ
Does the CRA apply to my company if we're headquartered outside the EU?
Yes. The CRA applies to any organization that places products with digital elements on the EU market, regardless of where the company is based. If you sell software, hardware, or connected products to EU customers, you need to meet CRA requirements and obtain CE marking for those products.
Does the CRA apply to SaaS products?
Pure SaaS offerings with no downloadable components are generally out of scope. However, most SaaS products include elements that bring them in — browser extensions, desktop or mobile apps, agent software, SDKs provided to customers, and CLI tools all fall under CRA requirements. If any component gets installed or downloaded by the user, that component is in scope.
When does my company need to be fully CRA compliant?
Full compliance with all security requirements is due by December 11, 2027. However, mandatory vulnerability reporting to ENISA starts earlier, on September 11, 2026. That earlier deadline means you need documented vulnerability handling processes and reporting channels in place well before the full compliance date.
What is the difference between security by design and traditional AppSec testing?
Traditional AppSec tools — SAST, SCA, and DAST — find vulnerabilities in code that already exists. Security by design means making security decisions during the architectural and feature design phase, before any code is written. The CRA requires documented evidence of the latter; code-level scan reports alone do not satisfy this requirement.
What evidence do I need to pass a CRA conformity assessment?
You need documented proof that security was considered during the design phase of each product, a software bill of materials (SBOM) in a machine-readable format, records of vulnerability handling processes, and technical documentation covering how your product meets the Annex I requirements. For higher-risk product categories, third-party assessment by a notified body is also required.
Getting Started With EU CRA Compliance
The Cyber Resilience Act formalizes what security teams have long advocated: security consideration at the design phase, with documented evidence. The regulation provides clear requirements and a defined timeline to build out security by design best practices. Prime Security closes the design-stage gap by bringing automated security review to the design phase, creating the documented evidence that conformity assessment requires while helping your security architects focus on the strategic decisions that need human judgment.
Ready to Explore Design-Stage Security Review?
Request a Demo to see how Prime Security automates CRA-compliant security design reviews across your development organization.
Blog
The next chapter of Prime Security
Dec 9, 2025
x min read
Today, I’m proud to share that Prime Security has raised a $20 million Series A, led by Scale Venture Partners, with continued support from Foundation Capital and Flybridge Ventures.When Dima, Matan, Danny, and I started Prime almost two years ago, our hypothesis was simple: Security isn’t keeping up with development. Despite endless tools, day-to-day security engineering and architecture work still feels manual, fragmented, and slow.
We experienced this problem first-hand. Dima’s previous security teams at PayPal were always playing catch-up, while Matan, Danny, and I were delaying releases at Own because of last-minute security requirements. Even two years ago, this was a huge problem.
What we didn’t expect was just how fast development itself would evolve. Everyone became an engineer. AI-powered coding tools exploded. Velocity went through the roof, and the bottleneck for security? It got 5× worse.
We are building Prime to change that.
The AI Security Architect - the Super-Tool Product Security Always Needed
LLMs changed everything. But we didn’t see them as a replacement for security engineers; we saw them as a way to scale their judgment.
From day one, our vision has been to democratize security knowledge across every development team, to make security as embedded and accessible as code review.
That’s what Prime is building: an AI Security Architect - the super-tool security teams have always needed. An agentic system that autonomously reviews design work, identifies risks, and recommends mitigations, before a single line of code is written.
With Prime, security teams can finally cover all development work, not just the 5–10 percent they can manually review today. The result? Teams eliminate review backlogs, accelerate development and save millions in process costs, sometimes tens of millions annually, all while actually improving security outcomes.
It’s not reactive security. It’s preemptive security, where risks are understood and resolved at the design stage, long before they ever become incidents.
We’ve been lucky to work with some incredible early partners - PayPal, Qualtrics, ThoughtSpot, Bumble, Yext, Redis Labs, and many others who believed in our vision early on.
Together, we proved our hypothesis: Product Security teams require tooling that lets them move at the speed of modern development, without compromising on risk visibility.
It’s not about scanning code faster. It’s about thinking about security earlier, when architecture, design, and product decisions are being made.
We started by focusing on the design stage of the product development lifecycle, but that is just the beginning. The challenges of securing modern development don’t end there. They start there.
This Series A funding gives us the resources to go deeper, expand our agentic AI capabilities, and grow our teams across the U.S. and Israel, all with the goal of leading the next era of product security.
We believe security shouldn’t slow you down. It should help you move faster confidently.
That’s what Prime is here to do.
— Michael Nov, Co-Founder & CEO, Prime Security
Blog
AI Development Tools Changed Everything: Product Security Must Adapt (June 2025)
Jun 18, 2025
x min read
EVERY SINGLE COMPANY I speak to has adopted or is adopting AI code generation tools. Cursor’s ARR numbers don’t lie. Some companies are pretending they haven’t, calling it “just a pilot” or “a few devs experimenting.” Others are leaning all the way in because they have to. Dev teams are demanding speed. Leadership wants productivity gains. And honestly? These tools are good. Too good to ignore.
But here’s the thing: AI-powered development is already here. It’s loud. It’s fast. And it’s not waiting around for security sign-off. The train has left the station. Security’s still checking the schedule. Google says 25% of their code is now written by AI. If they got there that fast, your org’s not far behind. This isn’t hype. It’s happening.
Let’s not kid ourselves, most developers aren’t generating full-blown apps (yet), especially at mid-sized and larger companies. For now, it’s autocomplete. Maybe a helper function here and there. Seems safe. Harmless.
But we’ve seen this progression before. Autocomplete becomes “generate block.” “Generate block” becomes “why not ship it?” And suddenly, you’ve got AI-assisted infrastructure changes cruising toward production. There’s a Jira ticket. There’s some plan. But no one’s waiting for a security review. The specs are thin, the pace is insane, and the review process? Skipped, sidelined, or rubber-stamped. Just enough structure to ship, nowhere near enough to secure.
And here’s what makes it even scarier: a lot of these changes aren’t greenfield. They’re not new apps. They’re small adjustments to complex, fragile, existing systems. A new flow here. A helper function there. A tiny tweak that seems low-risk, until it breaks something critical or quietly bypasses security controls that were never meant to be touched. And the tools? They simply lack the context to catch it.
We’ve already seen horror stories play out with vibe coders pushing insecure features into production. And we’ve heard of plenty more quietly handled inside enterprises, breaches averted by luck, late-night heroics, or pure chance. This isn’t theoretical. It’s already happening.
So where does that leave Product Security?
Let me be crystal clear: these tools don’t know your threat models. They don’t care about your asset inventory. They sure as hell don’t know your compliance requirements. They don’t know that your legacy billing service is basically a haunted house held together by duct tape, broken dreams, and a regex pattern no one understands.
And now the window between “I had an idea” and “it’s in production” is… what, a couple hours? What used to be design reviews, architecture sessions, a few spicy Slack threads, that’s all gone. It’s now: prompt, pull request, CR, merge. Done.
Manual product security processes? Dead on arrival. If your team still relies on humans to dig through design docs and flag every potential risk before a line of code is written, you’re already underwater. Best case, you slow things down and become that team. Worst case, you get quietly pushed out of the process entirely.
Some companies are trying to solve this by plugging static security rules into their AI dev tools, like that’s going to stop the bleeding. But rules without context don’t make things more secure. They just make the code more bloated. You end up with unnecessary security controls shoved into places they don’t belong, confusing developers and cluttering the codebase. The devs don’t argue. They just ship it and move on. Congrats, you’ve added security theater to the build pipeline. A silent overkill.
But let’s not confuse fixing bugs after the fact with building secure systems in the first place.
None of these tools are going to raise a flag when your architecture is fundamentally broken. They won’t catch it when a new feature opens up a nasty compliance gap. They won’t stop a dev from shipping an unauthenticated admin panel to production because the AI said, “looks good to me.”
They weren’t built for that. And that’s the real problem.
Security teams are staring at a widening gap, and most are still trying to patch it with manual reviews, tribal knowledge, and wishful thinking. But as the pace of development accelerates, absurdly accelerates, those old methods just don’t scale. They’re already cracking under pressure.
The opportunity? Massive. AI-powered development has created an entirely new class of problems, ones the existing security stack was never built to solve. Securing applications generated at the speed of a prompt requires a new approach, a new mindset, and yes, new tools. Entire categories of security tooling will need to be rebuilt for this world. This isn’t a “feature gap.” It’s a market gap.
So where do we go from here?
Security thinking has to shift upstream. It needs to be seamlessly embedded into planning, not patched onto delivery. It has to evolve from reactive reviews to proactive visibility. It needs to move with the development process, not try to slow it down from the sidelines.
This isn’t about waving red flags after the build pipeline’s already green. This is about being in the room when the feature is defined, before a single prompt is typed into the AI tool.
Because the future isn’t coming. It’s already writing itself.
And if security doesn’t learn to speak that language, to exist inside that flow, it won’t just be left behind. It’ll be ignored completely.
Blog
PDLC and SDLC: Partners, Not Rivals – Security Practices
Jan 22, 2025
x min read
In part one of this two-part series, we established that PDLC (Product Development Life Cycle) encompasses SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle), and that organizations should adopt both rather than treating them as separate or interchangeable approaches, especially in a world where most “products” are software-based.
This second article dives into the security angle for both PDLC and SDLC. When discussing software security, the focus typically lands on SDLC alone. However, this approach is too narrow for a product-driven landscape. Why? Because SDLC covers only the software portion, while threats today spread far beyond the application code.
Comparing Security Practices of PDLC and SDLC
Here’s the reality: in a world where software companies do everything they can to deliver their products as fast as possible, security can’t just be about the code or the infrastructure. It must be about the product, end to end. That’s where the shift from SDLC-focused security to PDLC-focused security becomes critical. The PDLC isn’t just about building software, it’s about building and managing the entire product, from ideation to decommissioning. And in a modern threat landscape where risks extend far beyond the boundaries of application code, PDLC-focused security is how you keep your product and your business safe.
Let’s take a closer look again at the various stages of PDLC and SDLC but this time, let’s add another layer, security practices for per each framework:
| PDLC Stage | SDLC Stage | PDLC Security Practices | SDLC Security Practices |
|---|---|---|---|
| Idea Generation & Conceptualization | No direct SDLC equivalent | Identify preliminary regulatory/compliance needs, baseline security posture | N/A (No code yet, no direct SDLC security actions) |
| Market Research & Analysis | No direct SDLC equivalent | Evaluate compliance frameworks (HIPAA, PCI-DSS), data privacy laws, threat landscape | N/A (Still no code; SDLC security actions have not started) |
| Product Design & Definition | Requirements Analysis (SDLC) | Define overall product-level security requirements, ensure alignment with market-driven compliance | Translate product security requirements into software-level security threats and security specs (e.g., OWASP ASVS) |
| Prototyping & Feasibility Testing | System Design (SDLC) | Validate product-level security assumptions, ensure secure design patterns at product architecture level | Perform secure architecture reviews, map security controls into system design, identify critical code-level mitigations |
| Development & Engineering (Incl. Software) | Implementation (Coding) (SDLC) | Ensure supply chain security (third-party components), maintain compliance oversight, product-level data protection policies | Implement secure coding practices, conduct code reviews with a security focus, perform SAST/DAST |
| Testing & Quality Assurance (Full Product) | Testing (SDLC) | Execute full product-level penetration tests, validate supply chain integrity, ensure compliance audits | Conduct software-level vulnerability scanning, fuzz testing, IAST, and security regression tests |
| Go-To-Market (Marketing & Launch) | Deployment (SDLC) | Harden deployment environments at the product level (secure configurations, protected delivery channels), ensure compliance sign-off | Secure the software deployment pipeline, apply hardened configurations, finalize environment-level security settings |
| Post-Launch Support & Iteration | Maintenance (SDLC) | Continuous product-level security monitoring (SIEM, supply chain monitoring), periodic compliance reassessment, incident response planning | Apply patches, fix bugs, remediate software vulnerabilities, maintain secure coding and release practices |
| Product Retirement / Sunset | No direct SDLC equivalent | Secure decommissioning at product-level (data sanitization, IP protection), compliance check for final asset handling | Remove or archive code securely, ensure no residual software vulnerabilities remain accessible, revoke credentials |
Three crucial insights:
- In an Secure Product Life Cycle focused approach, security is introduced at a point where significant design and architectural decisions are already made
- Many existing security processes before stage four (Development & Engineering) are either nonexistent or conducted manually
- Across stages, there is one common thread - Context. Security Teams need business context in every step, from mapping the regulatory and compliance requirements to understanding when and why a product should be deprecated
The conclusion - Security should be integrated in every stage
Since organizations developing software-based products operate largely within the PDLC, security must be integrated into every stage, not just during code creation. Success in this model hinges on understanding the broader business context, which acts as the connective tissue across all phases. Tools like Prime Security can help automate and streamline this process, ensuring that security follows the product from concept to retirement.
Blog
HIPAA's New Rules: Security-by-Design Increases in Importance
Jan 14, 2025
x min read
HIPAA is raising the bar with new cybersecurity rules to protect electronic health information (ePHI). These updates aim to tackle breaches and compliance gaps head-on. For healthcare organizations building software systems, it’s a wake-up call: security needs to start at the design phase.
What’s New?
The proposed HIPAA updates bring significant changes, including:
"Addressable" vs "Required" distinction - The new rules make all security standards mandatory, ensuring that essential protections are implemented consistently across regulated entities
Comprehensive Risk Assessments - Software organizations must inventory their technology assets and map how ePHI flows through systems, offering full visibility into vulnerabilities. These assessments should be conducted regularly, with frequency based on the organization's risk environment, operational changes, and evolving threats. This ensures continuous alignment with compliance and risk management
Mandatory Encryption - Encryption for ePHI is now a baseline requirement, ensuring sensitive health information remains protected in transit and at rest. Software-enabled solutions must include encryption protocols by default to safeguard data, even during potential breaches or unauthorized access attempts
Robust Audit Trails - HIPAA now prioritizes detailed monitoring and logging of ePHI access. Software systems need transparent tracking to identify who accessed data, when, and why. This simplifies regulatory reporting and strengthens accountability
Scalability and Flexibility - The rules remain technology-neutral, enabling software organizations of any size to implement solutions that balance security and operational efficiency. Whether a startup or enterprise, scalable options are critical to staying compliant
The message is clear: retrofitting security won’t suffice. To remain HIPAA-compliant, software systems must integrate security at every stage, starting from design.
Why Security-by-Design Matters
For software organizations building HIPAA-compliant systems, integrating security at the design phase is essential. Here’s why:
Early Risk Mitigation - Design-stage security uncovers risks before they escalate into costly vulnerabilities. This aligns with HIPAA’s proactive focus on risk management and ensures workflows remain seamless
Streamlined Compliance - Embedding security early ensures systems meet HIPAA’s requirements, such as audit trails, encryption, and risk assessments. This reduces the complexity of audits and guarantees long-term compliance
Accelerated Development - Addressing security from the start avoids delays and costly rework, enabling faster releases without compromising quality. HIPAA highlights proactive measures to prevent deployment vulnerabilities
Resilience Against Threats - Healthcare software is a prime cyberattack target. Design-stage security mitigates risks like unauthorized access and breaches, aligning with HIPAA’s call for adaptable systems to combat evolving threats
How Prime Security Fits the Bill
Prime Security helps software-enabled organizations integrate regulatory frameworks like HIPAA directly into their PDLC:
- Continuous Risk Monitoring: Scans planned development work to flag potential HIPAA-related risks, such as gaps in data encryption or insufficient audit trails
- Proactive Mitigation: Provides actionable mitigation plans tailored to address identified risks before development progresses
- Seamless Integration: Embeds compliance and security recommendations directly into developer workflows for easy adoption
- Regulatory Alignment: Simplifies adherence to HIPAA’s requirements for encryption, risk assessments, and ePHI access logging
With Prime, integrating HIPAA compliance into the SDLC becomes seamless, reducing risks and building trust.
The Bigger Picture
HIPAA’s updates are a turning point for healthcare cybersecurity. Organizations adopting security-by-design will:
- Protect patient data efficiently
- Build trust with users and regulators
- Innovate without compromising safety
The future of HIPAA compliance isn’t reactive, it’s preventative. Prime Security is here to help software organizations lead the way.
Blog
PDLC and SDLC: Partners, Not Rivals – The Essential Guide
Dec 30, 2024
x min read
This blog post is part one of a two-part series exploring the synergy between product and software development frameworks and the critical role security plays within them. In this first article, we’ll focus on the essentials: how the Product Development Life Cycle (PDLC) provides the overarching structure, while the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) operates as a vital component within it. In part two, we’ll shift our focus to security, examining how it threads through both frameworks and the need to shift to a more comprehensive approach. Ready to dive in? Let’s begin.
Your Software is a part of your Products
Building software today is no small feat. It requires a balancing act of speed, complexity, and quality. In today’s world, when we hear the word “product,” one of the first things that comes to mind (if not the one and only) is software. Whether it’s a sleek app, a powerful platform, or a seamless service, software has become the heart of modern products. But this shift has created a unique challenge: there are frameworks designed for building products and frameworks specifically for writing software. And because software often is the product, it’s easy to see why these two distinct types of frameworks frequently get blurred together.
PDLC (Product Development Life Cycle) and SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle) are two of the most fundamental frameworks in the tech world, yet they’re often treated as synonyms. On the surface, it’s understandable since both are about planning, creating, and delivering something of value. However, PDLC and SDLC serve very different purposes. PDLC is about the what and why of the product; defining goals, understanding user needs, and planning how to meet them. SDLC, on the other hand, zeroes in on the how; the technical process of designing, coding, testing, and deploying the software to deliver the what.
When these frameworks get confused, it can lead to misaligned priorities, poor communication, wasted effort and siloed security approach. Teams might overlook the big-picture strategy while getting lost in technical execution, or vice versa. And in a world where software is the backbone of most products, understanding the difference between these two frameworks isn’t just helpful but rather critical for building successful, scalable, and secure solutions. Let’s unpack how PDLC and SDLC work together.
Comparing the PDLC and the SDLC
- PDLC (Product Development Life Cycle) is the end-to-end process that guides a product from an initial idea through research, design, development, launch, and ongoing refinement until eventual retirement. It looks beyond just the code, focusing on business goals, market needs, and the full customer experience
- SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle) is the structured approach within the PDLC that specifically addresses the creation and maintenance of the software components. It provides a methodical framework for planning, building, testing, deploying, and maintaining the software so that it meets its requirements effectively
Put simply, PDLC orchestrates the entire product journey, while SDLC concentrates on how the software inside that product is built and kept running.
| PDLC Stage | SDLC Stage | Overlap & Hierarchy |
|---|---|---|
| Idea Generation & Conceptualization | No direct SDLC equivalent | PDLC > SDLC. No software code yet; conceptualizing product vision and business case |
| Market Research & Analysis | No direct SDLC equivalent | PDLC > SDLC. Market needs and compliance considerations shape future technical decisions |
| Product Design & Definition | Requirements Analysis (SDLC) | Overlap begins: PDLC guides what the product must do; SDLC translates this into software requirements |
| Prototyping & Feasibility Testing | System Design (SDLC) | PDLC > SDLC. Product prototypes guide technical feasibility, including secure architectures |
| Development & Engineering (Incl. Software) | Implementation (Coding) (SDLC) | Strong overlap: The PDLC’s product build includes creating the software |
| Testing & Quality Assurance (Full Product) | Testing (SDLC) | Direct overlap: PDLC testing considers full product security; SDLC testing focuses on software vulnerabilities |
| Go-To-Market (Marketing & Launch) | Deployment (SDLC) | Partial overlap: PDLC includes full product rollout (marketing, distribution), SDLC deployment focuses on releasing code |
| Post-Launch Support & Iteration | Maintenance (SDLC) | Overlap: PDLC ongoing improvements may drive continuous software updates and patches in SDLC |
| Product Retirement / Sunset | No direct SDLC equivalent | PDLC > SDLC. Product lifecycle ends; software may be decommissioned |
Think of PDLC as the overarching blueprint you’d use to craft a bestselling book. It starts with understanding your audience, picking the right genre, outlining the story’s arc, and planning how you’ll publish, distribute, and market the final work. SDLC, on the other hand, is like the detailed process of writing the chapters, editing each sentence, fixing plot holes, and ensuring the language flows smoothly. In other words, while the PDLC is about shaping a novel that resonates with readers and finds success in the market, the SDLC is about making sure the prose itself is strong and coherent. Without a solid PDLC to guide the SDLC, you might write a beautifully polished manuscript that no one wants to read or overlook security risks that arise from decisions made outside the text itself.
Compliments not Competitors
While it’s tempting to think of product and software as interchangeable in today’s world where most products are software-based, they are not the same. Each requires its own methodology, and understanding the distinctions between PDLC and SDLC is key to ensuring success. That said, it’s not about choosing one over the other; it’s about recognizing how they complement each other. Ignoring either framework means risking critical oversights and especially when it comes to security which can lead to far-reaching consequences.
Blog
Why We Should Talk More About Product Security
Nov 20, 2024
x min read
We all know the following fact: software development is in overdrive. Agile, DevOps, cloud-native platforms, microservices, code co-pilots, you name it, have made shipping products faster and easier than ever. But here’s the catch: all that speed and innovation has created a tangled mess of interconnected parts. And when it comes to security, most teams are still trying to tackle the problem one layer at a time:infrastructure here, application code there, data somewhere else.
And while this still covers main areas of concern, it also slows the business down. Modern software products are more like intricate ecosystems than neat stacks. If you’re only looking at security layer by layer, you’re missing the big picture, and leaving your product open to serious risk. Risk that is not confined to a single layer, but sprawls across all of them.
The Problem with a Lack of Business Context
Let’s take a page out of the great movie Big Short, and look at how restaurants operate. Say you just built a new top-of-the-line restaurant, hired the best chef, and ensured the dining area is off the charts! But if you don’t understand how your customers move through the restaurant, their favorite dishes, or what drives repeat visits, you will be working hard to make the business work but could be focusing on the wrong things. Put simply, you will be losing money.
The same is true for product security. Without understanding the broader business context, security teams can’t make truly risk-driven decisions. This often leaves them riding in the dark, with the occasional streetlamp to guide them. In cloud-native products, where everything moves fast and every decision matters, security must align with the product’s goals.
The Challenge with Manual Security Reviews
At this point we expect you to stop and say, “don’t we already have security reviews to handle this? Aren’t they supposed to catch every potential issue, ensuring that every change and development is seen through the proper lens of security?” Technically, you’d be right; that’s exactly what security reviews are meant to do. But we are realists and not hopeless optimists: the process is still manual. It relies heavily on human effort, tracking changes, analyzing risks, and trying to keep up with the relentless pace of development.
Now let me adjust the question a bit: how can we secure the business when development velocity has skyrocketed, business logic evolves constantly, and security is overwhelmed with vertical security and is constantly understaffed? The gap is growing wider by the day.Without automation, context-driven insights, and a holistic approach, security teams are left playing catch-up, reacting to risks after they’ve already been introduced instead of preventatively mitigating them. If we’re going to keep up, the way we approach security reviews has to evolve.
Why Security Needs to Evolve
The reality is security can’t afford to be stuck in the past. Software development has evolved into a high-speed race where new features and updates are shipped daily. The business logic driving these changes is constantly shifting, and manual security processes just can’t keep up.
To meet these demands, security needs to shift its mindset. It’s no longer about simply protecting individual layers or running manual reviews when something big is about to be released.It’s about building a security framework that understands the business context, moves at the speed of development, and sees the product as a dynamic, interconnected ecosystem. This means integrating automation, embracing a secure by design mindset, and embedding security into every aspect of the product lifecycle. Only by evolving in this way can security teams keep up with the pace of innovation while not only protecting the business, but also enabling it from the ground up.
Blog
Can we expect developers to be security experts?
Nov 4, 2024
x min read
Secure development is challenging and can be a significant drain on time and resources. Adding security responsibilities to developers’ workloads can overwhelm teams and raise security risks for organizations.
The pressure is on
Development is moving faster than ever, with AI accelerating the pace to new heights. Developers want to focus on what they do best, building and shipping great products. But when security tasks are layered on top, it creates a difficult trade-off, often sacrificing security for speed.
We recently met an impressive Product Security team at a fast-growing fintech company. They had all the right processes and tools, yet a critical design vulnerability, a broken authentication, slipped into production. Why? Developers had pushed for a low-risk classification for the release. The fallout: an unplanned emergency patch and a month of lost development time.
This isn’t an isolated story. Many organizations report similar experiences: development teams often label risks as “medium” or “low,” only for critical vulnerabilities to sneak into production, triggering fire drills and costly late fixes.
The data speaks for Itself
Accelerated development cycles - traditional automation and modern AI tools are speeding up development cycles. Great for innovation and velocity, but it also means that design risk increases if security guidance isn’t seamlessly integrated into the process
Growing complexity - with expanding tech stacks, developers need just-in-time guidance on integrating new technologies into their products and features.Code scanning alone can’t provide this support
Rising late remediations – despite the focus on secure development, the bug bounty and pen testing markets are expanding faster than ever, reflecting that vulnerabilities still slip through, demanding costly late fixes.
High developer turnover – developers change roles frequently, often staying for less than two years. By the time they’re trained on secure practices, they may move on, leaving knowledge gaps and disrupting the organization’s security continuity
Finding the real solution
Rather than expecting developers to shoulder security independently, organizations need to embed security directly into the development process - automated, integrated, and always present. This approach ensures developers receive consistent, reliable guidance without interrupting their workflow or slowing innovation.
Seamless integration of security into existing workflows allows developers to stay focused on what they do best, develop. With the right guidance, at the right time, they can make informed security decisions effortlessly.
At Prime, we make security guidance as seamless as your code deployments.
Our integrated approach ensures your team has the support they need, when they need it, for secure, rapid development. Ready to streamline security without slowing your development team down? Reach out to see how we can help.
Blog
Security by Design: Regulatory Requirements in October 2024
Oct 9, 2024
x min read
Building Secure Foundations: The Shift Towards Security by Design
“Security by Design” is no longer a best practice - it is a regulatory auditable imperative. Various global standards and frameworks now mandate that organizations adopt SbD principles to ensure compliance with data protection, privacy, and cybersecurity regulations.
Traditionally, security is reactive—addressed only after systems were developed or, worse, once a breach had already occurred. The limitations of this reactive approach have driven the emergence of the “Security by Design” philosophy, which prioritizes the integration of security measures right from the earliest stages of design and development. This principle has become a foundational aspect of the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), embedding security directly into the architecture of systems and products from the ground up.
Rather than relying solely on reactive methods like scanning run-time systems or identifying vulnerabilities after deployment, “Security by Design” focuses on preventing these risks much earlier in the process. It ensures that security considerations are a core element of the product development journey, reducing the likelihood of security flaws and minimizing the need for costly, time-consuming fixes later.
Regulators and international standards bodies have recognized the value of this approach. By incorporating “Security by Design” into the various frameworks, they are urging organizations to proactively identify potential security gaps and vulnerabilities, embedding robust security safeguards from the inception of any product or system. This shift towards a preemptive security strategy represents a significant evolution in how security is conceptualized and implemented across industries.
Relevance by Regulatory Framework
The table below outlines the “Security by Design” requirements within the current regulatory landscape and explains how organizations can achieve both procedural and technological compliance requirements with Prime Security.
NIST
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is a U.S. government agency that develops and promotes measurement standards, technology, and science to enhance economic security and quality of life.
| Standard Name | Control/Requirement ID | Control/Requirement Description | Compliance with Prime |
|---|---|---|---|
| NIST CSF 2.0 | Platform Security (PR.PS) | PR.PS-06 Secure software development practices are integrated, and their performance is monitored throughout the software development life cycle | Prime incorporates secure development practices during the design phase and automatically identifies security risks |
| CA-02(02) Control Assessments | Specialized Assessments | Specialized assessments can also be conducted early in the system development life cycle (e.g., during initial design, development, and unit testing). | Prime facilitates the early identification of security risks by conducting security assessments during the initial design stage of system development lifecycle | |
| SA-03 System Development Life Cycle | a. Acquire, develop, and manage the system using an organization-defined system development life cycle that incorporates information security and privacy considerations. | Prime incorporates security and privacy requirements into the organization's SDLC by identifying risks early in the design phase | |
| SA-03 System Development Life Cycle | d. Integrate the organizational information security and privacy risk management process into system development life cycle activities. | Prime embeds the organization's security and privacy engineering principles or industry best practices into the design phase of SDLC | |
| SA-08 Security and Privacy Engineering Principles | Apply the organization-defined systems security and privacy engineering principles in the specification, design, development, implementation, and modification of the system and system components. | ||
| NIST 800-53r5 | SA-08 Security and Privacy Engineering Principles | Ensure that the systems security and privacy engineering principles are applied throughout the system development life cycle. | Prime embeds security and privacy requirements at the design stage, ensuring they are upheld throughout the SDLC |
| NIST 800-53r5 | PM-07 Enterprise Architecture | Integrate security and privacy requirements and controls into the enterprise architecture to ensure they are addressed throughout the system development life cycle and are explicitly related to the organization's mission and business processes. | Prime embeds security and privacy requirements at the design stage, ensuring they are upheld throughout the SDLC |
| NIST 800-53r5 | RA-08 Privacy Impact Assessments | Conduct privacy impact assessments for systems, programs, or other activities before developing or procuring information technology that processes personally identifiable information. | Prime identifies engineering tasks that could potential cause privacy violations prior to them being started |
ISO
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is a global body that develops and publishes international standards for products, services, and systems across various industries.
| Standard Name | Control/Requirement ID | Control/Requirement Description | Compliance with Prime |
|---|---|---|---|
| ISO/IEC 27001:2022(E) | 8.26 Application security requirements | Control: Information security requirements shall be identified, specified and approved when developing or acquiring applications. | Prime integrates into the organizational system development life cycle, detects and mitigates security gaps in the requirements given to systems and projects |
| ISO/IEC 27001:2022(E) | 5.8 Information security in project management | Control: Information security shall be integrated into project management. | Prime integrates information security into project management by embedding security requirements and risk assessments as early as possible in the development lifecycle |
| ISO/IEC 27002:2022(E) | 5.8 Information security in project management |
Control: Information security should be integrated into project management. Purpose: To ensure information security risks related to projects and deliverables are effectively addressed in project management throughout the project life cycle. Guidance: Information security should be integrated into project management to ensure information security risks are addressed as part of the project management. This can be applied to any type of project regardless of its complexity, size, duration, discipline or application area (e.g. a project for a core business process, ICT, facility management or other supporting processes). The project management in use should require that:
Early consideration of information security requirements for the product or service (e.g. at the planning and design stages), can lead to more effective and cost-efficient solutions for quality and information security. |
Prime integrates information security into project management by ensuring that security risks are assessed and treated early and periodically throughout the project lifecycle. It incorporates security requirements, such as application security and intellectual property compliance, from the planning and design stages, leading to more effective and cost-efficient solutions |
| ISO/IEC 27002:2022(E) | 8.25 Secure development life cycle |
Control: Rules for the secure development of software and systems should be established and applied. Purpose: To ensure information security is designed and implemented within the secure development life cycle of software and systems. Guidance:
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Prime helps establish and apply rules for the secure development of software and systems by embedding information security requirements into the specification and design phases of the development lifecycle. This ensures that security is integrated from the outset, providing a foundation for building robust and secure applications |
| ISO/IEC 27002:2022(E) | 8.27 Secure system architecture and engineering principles |
Control: Principles for engineering secure systems should be established, documented, maintained and applied to any information system development activities. Purpose: To ensure information systems are securely designed, implemented and operated within the development life cycle. Guidance: Security engineering principles should be established, documented and applied to information system engineering activities. Security should be designed into all architecture layers (business, data, applications and technology). New technology should be analyzed for security risks and the design should be reviewed against known attack patterns. Secure engineering principles provide guidance on user authentication techniques, secure session control and data validation and sanitisation. Secure system engineering should involve:
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Prime helps organizations establish, document, and maintain secure system engineering principles throughout the development lifecycle, ensuring security is integrated into all architecture layers—business, data, applications, and technology. It supports security-by-design practices, such as "defense in depth," "least privilege," and "default deny," while guiding security-oriented design reviews to identify vulnerabilities and ensure adequate controls are in place |
PCI-DSS v4.0
The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a set of security requirements designed to ensure that all companies that process, store, or transmit credit card information maintain a secure environment.
| Control/Requirement ID | Control/Requirement Description | Compliance with Prime |
|---|---|---|
| Requirement 6: Develop and Maintain Secure Systems and Software | 6.2.1: Incorporating consideration of information security issues during each stage of the software development lifecycle. | Prime incorporates information security considerations during the design stage of the software development lifecycle, ensuring that potential risks are identified and addressed early. This proactive approach reduces the likelihood of discovering security vulnerabilities at later stages, minimizing costly rework and enhancing overall system security |
HITRUST
The HiTRUST (Health Information Trust Alliance) CSF (Common Security Framework) is a comprehensive security framework designed specifically for the healthcare industry. It combines and harmonizes various standards and regulations, including HIPAA, PCI, and ISO, to provide organizations with a unified approach to managing information security and privacy risks in healthcare.
| Control/Requirement ID | Control/Requirement Description | Compliance with Prime |
|---|---|---|
| Control Category: 10.0 - Information Systems Acquisition, Development, and Maintenance |
Control Objective: To ensure that security is an integral part of information systems. Control Specification: Statements of business requirements for new information systems (developed or purchased), or enhancements to existing information systems shall specify the requirements for security controls. Specifications for the security control requirements include security controls to be incorporated in the information system, and supplemented by manual controls as needed. Further, security control requirements are considered when evaluating software packages, either developed or purchased. |
Prime ensures that security is an integral part of information systems by embedding security control requirements into the specifications for new or enhanced systems. This approach ensures that security requirements are considered from the outset |
CSA controls matrix v4.0.12
The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) Cloud Controls Matrix (CCM) is a cybersecurity control framework specifically designed for cloud computing environments. It provides a comprehensive set of cloud-specific security controls to help organizations assess and improve their cloud security posture, align with various regulations, and enhance overall risk management in cloud deployments.
| Control/Requirement ID | Control/Requirement Description | Compliance with Prime |
|---|---|---|
| Application & Interface Security Secure Application Design and Development (AIS-04) | Define and implement a SDLC process for application design, development, deployment, and operation in accordance with security requirements defined by the organization. | Prime integrates the organization's security requirements into the SDLC by identifying risks and defining security controls during the application design phase |
| Data Security and Privacy Lifecycle Management Data Protection by Design and Default (DSP-07) |
Develop systems, products, and business practices based upon a principle of security by design and industry best practices. | Prime enables the development of systems, products, and business practices based on the principle of security by design and aligned with industry best practices. It incorporates security requirements from the outset, ensuring that security is embedded throughout the development process |
| Data Security and Privacy Lifecycle Management Data Privacy by Design and Default (DSP-08) |
Develop systems, products, and business practices based upon a principle of privacy by design and industry best practices. Ensure that systems' privacy settings are configured by default, according to all applicable laws and regulations. | Prime automatically identifies potential privacy violations during the design stage, ensuring that privacy requirements are integrated from the outset. It helps configure systems' privacy settings by default to comply with applicable laws and regulations, following the principle of privacy by design and industry best practices |
COBIT 5
Control Objectives for Information and Related Technologies (COBIT) is a framework created by ISACA for information technology (IT) management and IT governance. It provides a set of best practices for aligning IT with business objectives, optimizing IT resources, and managing IT-related risks and controls across an organization.
| Control/Requirement ID | Control/Requirement Description | Compliance with Prime |
|---|---|---|
| BAI01 - Manage Programmes and Projects BAI01.09 - Manage programme and project quality |
1. Identify assurance tasks and practices required to support the accreditation of new or modified systems during programme and project planning, and include them in the integrated plans. Ensure that the tasks provide assurance that internal controls and security solutions meet the defined requirements. | Prime identifies compliance and regulatory violations at the design stage, ensuring that any issues are addressed early to support the accreditation of new or modified systems. By integrating these assurance tasks into project planning, it provides confidence that internal controls and security solutions meet defined requirements from the outset. |
| BAI02 - Manage Requirements BAI02.04 - Obtain approval of requirements and solutions |
1. Ensure that the business sponsor or product owner makes the final decision with respect to the choice of solution, acquisition approach and high-level design, according to the business case. Coordinate feedback from affected stakeholders and obtain sign-off from appropriate business and technical authorities (e.g., business process owner, enterprise architect, operations manager, security) for the proposed approach. | Prime enables the business sponsor or product owner to make informed decisions on the solution, acquisition approach, and high-level design by identifying security risks early in the design stage. It provides insights into potential vulnerabilities and gathers feedback from stakeholders, ensuring that decisions are aligned with both business objectives and security requirements. |
| BAI03 - Manage Solutions Identification and Build BAI03.01 - Design high-level solutions |
3. Create a design that is compliant with the organization's design standards, at a level of detail that is appropriate for the solution and development method and consistent with business, enterprise and IT strategies, the enterprise architecture, security plan, and applicable laws, regulations and contracts. | Prime ensures that designs comply with organizational standards by identifying security requirements and risks early in the development process. It aligns the design with business, enterprise, and IT strategies, the enterprise architecture, security plans, and relevant laws, regulations, and contracts. |
| BAI03 - Manage Solutions Identification and Build BAI03.02 - Design detailed solution components |
9. Proactively evaluate for design weaknesses (e.g., inconsistencies, lack of clarity, potential flaws) throughout the life cycle, identifying improvements when required. | Prime focuses on identifying security flaws during the design phase by evaluating potential weaknesses, such as inconsistencies, ambiguities, and vulnerabilities. It provides early insights and recommendations for improvement, ensuring that security issues are addressed before they progress further in the development lifecycle. |
Institute of Internal Auditors
The Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) is a global professional association that serves as the primary advocate, educator, and standard-setter for the internal audit profession. It provides guidance, certifications, and resources to enhance the effectiveness of internal auditors in various industries, promoting ethical practices and professional excellence in risk management, control, and governance processes.
| Control/Requirement ID | Control/Requirement Description | Compliance with Prime |
|---|---|---|
| F. How the organization addresses cybersecurity within their system development life cycle, including the following control aspects | 1. Planning: Cybersecurity has been identified as a key component when assessing risks and analyzing potential vulnerabilities. The scope and objectives of the software implementation should be included as the organization evaluates cybersecurity controls during the planning phase. |
Prime integrates cybersecurity risk assessments and compliance checks throughout the planning, requirements-gathering, and design phases of the SDLC. It identifies vulnerabilities early, ensures alignment with legal and regulatory standards, and recommends the necessary security controls that should be applied. Prime enables cyber security auditors to perform an effective audit process to ensure that security controls are being implemented at the design stage including formal audit evidence gathering. |
OWASP ASVS v4.0.3
Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) is a nonprofit foundation dedicated to improving the security of software. It provides freely available articles, methodologies, documentation, tools, and technologies in the field of web application security.
| Control/Requirement ID | Control/Requirement Description | Compliance with Prime |
|---|---|---|
| V1.1 Secure Software Development Lifecycle | 1.1.1 Verify the use of a secure software development lifecycle that addresses security in all stages of development | Prime integrates into the design phase of SDLC and provides the proper security practices before actual development starts |
CIS
The Center for Internet Security (CIS) is a nonprofit organization that develops and promotes best practice standards for cyber defense. CIS provides benchmarks, controls, and tools to help organizations improve their cybersecurity posture, with a focus on creating and maintaining consensus-based, vendor-agnostic security configuration guidelines for various IT systems and software.
| Control/Requirement ID | Control/Requirement Description | Compliance with Prime |
|---|---|---|
| Control 16 - Application Software Security | 16.1 Establish and maintain a secure application development process. In the process, address such items as: secure application design standards, secure coding practices, developer training, vulnerability management, security of third-party code, and application security testing procedures. Review and update documentation annually, or when significant enterprise changes occur that could impact this Safeguard. | Prime enables organizations to establish and maintain a secure application development process by identifying risks early and recommending security requirements aligned with best practices |
GDPR
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a comprehensive data privacy law enacted by the European Union in 2018. It sets strict rules for how organizations must handle personal data of EU residents, including requirements for consent, data protection measures, and individuals' rights over their data.
| Control/Requirement ID | Control/Requirement Description | Compliance with Prime |
|---|---|---|
| Article 25 - Data Protection by Design and by Default |
1. Taking into account the state of the art, the cost of implementation and the nature, scope, context and purposes of processing as well as the risks of varying likelihood and severity for rights and freedoms of natural persons posed by the processing, the controller shall, both at the time of the determination of the means for processing and at the time of the processing itself, implement appropriate technical and organizational measures, such as pseudonymisation, which are designed to implement data-protection principles, such as data minimisation, in an effective manner and to integrate the necessary safeguards into the processing in order to meet the requirements of this Regulation and protect the rights of data subjects. 2. The controller shall implement appropriate technical and organizational measures for ensuring that, by default, only personal data which are necessary for each specific purpose of the processing are processed. |
Prime helps organizations comply with data protection regulations by identifying cybersecurity risks during the design stage of the SDLC |
European Commission, Cyber Resilience Act
The European Commission is the executive branch of the European Union (EU). It proposes and enforces legislation, implements policies, and manages the day-to-day operations of the EU.
| Control/Requirement ID | Control/Requirement Description | Compliance with Prime |
|---|---|---|
| Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL on horizontal cybersecurity requirements for products with digital elements and amending Regulation (EU) 2019/1020 | (1) create conditions for the development of secure products with digital elements by ensuring that hardware and software products are placed on the market with fewer vulnerabilities and that manufactures take security seriously throughout a product's life cycle. | Prime enables the development of secure products with digital elements by identifying vulnerabilities early in the design phase and ensuring they are minimized before market release. |
Monetary Authority of Singapore
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) is Singapore's central bank and integrated financial regulator. It oversees all financial institutions in Singapore, manages the country's exchange rate, operates its monetary policy, and works to ensure financial stability.
| Control/Requirement ID | Control/Requirement Description | Compliance with Prime |
|---|---|---|
| 5.4 System Development Life Cycle and Security-By-Design | 5.4.2 The security-by-design approach refers to building security in every phase of the SDLC in order to minimize system vulnerabilities and reduce the attack surface. The FI should incorporate security specifications in the system design, perform continuous security evaluation, and adhere to security practices throughout the SDLC. | Prime implements a security-by-design approach by embedding specific security requirements during the design phase of the SDLC to minimize vulnerabilities and reduce the attack surface. It continuously evaluates the system for security risks and ensures adherence to best practices throughout development. |
| 5.6 System Design and Implementation | 5.6.1 As part of the design phase, the FI should review the proposed architecture and design of the IT system, including the IT controls to be built into the system, to ensure they meet the defined requirements, before implementation. | Prime facilitates the review of the proposed IT system architecture and design during the design phase to ensure that all security controls align with defined requirements. |
The Future of Security by Design in Agile and CI/CD Environments
The evolution of Security by Design from a reactive, optional approach to a regulatory guideline reflects the increasing importance of cybersecurity in the modern world. As cyber threats continue to evolve, organizations can no longer afford to treat security as an afterthought. SbD ensures that security is a foundational element of system architecture, and compliance with international standards is critical to maintaining secure, resilient systems. By embracing SbD principles, organizations can protect their assets, meet regulatory requirements, and build trust with users in an increasingly interconnected digital landscape.
The rise of Agile development, alongside Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) practices, presents new challenges to the current, manual approaches. As CI/CD pipelines speed up the development and deployment cycles, the rapid pace of automation can reduce the capacity of human security architects to deliver timely and precise security guidance, and hence become a blocker to the business. To effectively address these challenges, the “Security by Design” framework must be reinforced by automated software tools, such as Prime, that can integrate security checks and controls seamlessly into the accelerated development process.
