The other day it hit me: Process is not that important to secure code development. Waterfall? Doesn’t matter. Agile process? Secondary. They only frame the techniques that create success. Saying a process helps create secure code is like saying a cattle chute tames a wild Brahma bull. Guidelines, steps, and procedures do little to alter code security, only which code gets worked on. To motivate developers to improve security, try less carrot and more stick. Heck, process is not even a carrot – it’s more like those nylon dividers at the airport to keep polite people from pushing and shoving to the front of the line. No, if you want to developers to write secure code, use peer pressure.

Peer pressure is the most effective technique we have for producing secure code. That’s it. Use it every chance to you get. It’s the right thing to do.

Don’t believe me? You think pair coding is about cross training? Please. It’s about peer pressure. Co-workers will realize you suck at coding, and publicly ridicule you for failing to validate input variables. So you up your game and double-check what you are supposed to deliver. Quality assurance teams point out places in the code that you screwed up, and bug counts come up during your raise review. Peer pressure. No developer wants his or her API banned because hackers trampled over it like fans at a Who concert.

If you have taken management classes, you have heard about the Hawthorne Effect, discovered through studies in the 1920s and ’30s. In attempts to increase factory worker output, they adjusted working conditions, specifically looking for optimal lighting that produced the highest productivity. What they found, however, was that productivity has nothing to do with the light level per se, but went up whenever the light level changed. It was a study, so supervisors paid attention when the light changed to monitor the results. When the workers knew they were being watched, their productivity went up. Peer pressure.

Why do you think we have daily scrum meetings? We do it so you remember what you are supposed to be working on, and we do it in front of all your peers so you feel the shame of falling behind. That’s why we ask everyone in the room to participate. These little sessions are especially helpful at waking up those 20-something team members who were up all night partying with their ‘bros’, or drinking Guinness and watching Manchester United till the wee hours of the morning. You know who you are.

We have ‘Sprints’ for the same reason universities have exams: to get you to do the coursework. It’s your opportunity to say, “Oh, S$^)#, I forgot to read those last 8 chapters,” and start cramming for the exam. Only at work you start cramming from the deadline. 30 day sprints just provide more opportunities to prod developers with the stick than, say, 180 day waterfall cycles.

I think Kent Beck had it wrong when he said that unacknowledged fear is the root cause of all software project failures. I think fear of the wrong things causes project failures. We specify priorities so we understand the very minimum we are responsible for, and we work like crazy to get the basics done. Specify security as the primary requirement, verify people are doing their jobs, and you get results.

External code review? Peer pressure. Quality assurance? Peer pressure. Automated build failures? Peer pressure. The Velocity concept? Peer pressure. Testers fuzzing your code? Still peer pressure. Sure, creating stories, checklists, milestones, and threat analysis set direction – but none of those is a driver. Process frame the techniques we use, and the techniques alter behavior. The techniques that promote peer pressure, manifesting itself through fear or pride, are the most effective drivers we have.

Disagree? Tell me why.

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