THREATNOIR
Subscribe
NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 · SA-15

Development Process, Standards, and Tools

US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) · cited in 36 of our lessons

Explanation

What it asks for. Developers must follow a documented development process that addresses security and privacy, identifies the standards and tools used, documents tool options and configurations and maintains the integrity of changes, and the organisation must review that process periodically.

In practice. This means a secure development life cycle with defined coding standards, approved tools, pipeline configuration under change control and security activities at each phase. Auditors expect the documented process, evidence it is followed in real projects and periodic reviews of its effectiveness. The NIST Secure Software Development Framework and OWASP SAMM describe comparable practices.

Common gaps. Organisations frequently document a process that does not match how teams actually work. Tooling and pipeline configurations change without review, weakening the integrity of builds.

Open SP 800-53 at NIST
The official text
a. Require the developer of the system, system component, or system service to follow a documented development process that: 1. Explicitly addresses security and privacy requirements; 2. Identifies the standards and tools used in the development process; 3. Documents the specific tool options and tool configurations used in the development process; and 4. Documents, manages, and ensures the integrity of changes to the process and/or tools used in development; and b. Review the development process, standards, tools, tool options, and tool configurations [Assignment: organization-defined frequency] to determine if the process, standards, tools, tool options and tool configurations selected and employed can satisfy the following security and privacy requirements: [Assignment: organization-defined organization-defined security and privacy requirements]. Discussion: Development tools include programming languages and computer-aided design systems. Reviews of development processes include the use of maturity models to determine the potential effectiveness of such processes. Maintaining the integrity of changes to tools and processes facilitates effective supply chain risk assessment and mitigation. Such integrity requires configuration control throughout the system development life cycle to track authorized changes and prevent unauthorized changes.

From NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5, a work of the US government in the public domain.

Lessons that cite it

Real incidents where this item mattered: the latest 12 of 36.