Tips for Secure Programming and Coding

While security has always been a concern for individuals and companies online, today this is more true now than ever. Hacks and data breaches are skyrocketing and hundreds of millions of people are being compromised every year. While this happens to big businesses, it can also happen to small entities or even individuals as well.

As a result, it is more important to ensure the code you or your company is writing remains secure. While it is impossible to avoid every potential attack, hack or data breach, you can try your best to prepare. While things such as testing frequently and using passwords can help, they are far from the only ways to secure your code. With that in mind, this article is going to look at a few tips for secure programming and coding.

Utilize Log Management

Whether you have programmed an app or a piece of software, it is important to monitor it going forward after the initial coding is done. Without any sort of monitoring, you may not be any the wiser if someone hacks you. As a result, using a service or tool like log management and monitoring is important. Logs are a time-stamped documentation of events that are related to a particular system.

Log management allows you to analyze and store these logs and show you trends or events in the system. So if something unexpected occurs within your code or piece of software, you will be able to figure out where that occurred and what happened. As you could imagine, this is very helpful when it comes to both security and compliance.

There are many different log management platforms, tools, and services out there, so be sure to do some research to find the right one. Sites like DNSstuff offer reviews of different tools, so you can decide which is the right one for your needs.

Restrict Access

While being liberal with handing out access can help ensure no roadblocks are encountered in the future, security is more important. Unfortunately, the more people that have access to your code, the higher the chance that something becomes compromised. This is because most data breaches are actually a result of human error, so be careful with how much access you provide to employees.

Only those who are actively working on the code should have access to it. Give people the smallest amount of access they need to do the job. There are a number of different ways you can control or restrict access. This gives data owners and businesses a lot of flexibility for choosing who they want to provide access to.

Consider Adding Delays to Code

While many people think of a hack or data breach involving a single individual trying to “crack the code,” this isn’t often the case. Oftentimes, these criminals will rely on powerful computers to relentlessly try and access your code, systems or files. They can do this either by continuously posing as a user trying to access or by trying billions of different password combinations.

One thing you can do to combat these efforts is to add some delays to your code. This delay will help slow these bots down to a half, without affecting the experience of actual humans. There are different ways you can do this, such as adding slight delay with each incorrect log-in attempt.

Hopefully, this article has been able to help you learn how to program and code in a more secure manner. Protecting your code and making sure it works and is secure is paramount to being successful in the space.

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