It is our understanding that the cause behind the loss of 400,000 police records in the UK, was down to a human error whereby defective code was introduced during routine maintenance. It is frustrating to see that the loss of this extremely important government data could have potentially been avoided, if only engineers were given the time and tools to put security first, always.  

It’s imperative that all developers are trained in how to code securely from the outset. That way, vulnerable code would never have been introduced, and the loss of data might have been prevented.  

While it’s ineffective to teach secure coding in a classroom, there are ways that governments and private organisations alike can encourage their developers to care about secure coding. One of the most successful ways is through hyper-relevant gamified learning platforms that allow developers to learn how to code securely, without taking time out from their day job.”  

Unfortunately, as happens all too often, a foundational lack of security awareness in development teams proved costly in this instance, and the consequences were dire.

I believe that in 2021 and beyond, CIOs must focus on training people, rather than an over-reliance on security tools. Scanning tools and the like have their place in a DevSecOps process, for example, but security at speed is made possible by producing secure code in the first place. It’s kind of a “humans vs. robots” approach - the human element is often left out, when in fact automation is not getting the job done. Headlines uncovering new data breaches every other day are evidence of that. 

We must get to a point where developers - those who touch code most - are given the knowledge and tools to play a greater role in software security. Ideally, those tools are best placed in their workflow, getting closer to their day-to-day activities until security is second-nature.