Security is a crucial aspect of an application. Failure to incorporate security best practices during app development can lead to costly security breaches. With the cyber threat scope growing, it is important to integrate security testing into the Mendix development process. Mendix recognizes the criticality of security and uses the concept of security by design to ensure that apps built with Mendix are as secure as possible.
Also, this low-code development platform offers out-of-the-box security tools, governance tooling, and development methods to ensure your application and its data are secure, regardless of who is developing the app. But how do you integrate Mendix security testing into the development process? Let’s find out.
How to Integrate Security Testing into the Mendix Development Process
Here are several practices you can follow to integrate security testing into the Mendix development process
1. Outline Your Security Requirements
Each application has unique security requirements. Therefore, an app in the banking sector would have different security requirements from that of the health industry. Establishing clear security requirements for your Mendix app is the basic step for integrating security testing into the development process.
In this step, identify potential security vulnerabilities and risks arising from your app’s functionality, architecture, and design. Also, you should define security guidelines and standards that your developer should follow during the Mendix development process.
2. Perform Threat Modeling
Threat modeling helps you identify possible threats and vulnerabilities in your Mendix app. It involves analyzing your app’s design, functionality, and architecture to spot areas of weakness that malicious parties, like hackers, can exploit. Use threat modeling techniques such as risk matrices, attack trees, and data flow diagrams to identify possible security risks.
3. Incorporate Security Testing in the Development Phases
As initially stated, Mendix embraces the concept of security by design. Therefore, you can embed security testing in every development stage. Consider adopting security tasks like vulnerability scanning, code reviews, and security testing in the development phases to catch security issues in the early development stages.
Mendix provides tools to ensure the testing of your application throughout various development stages. Adopt safe coding practices, like input validation and proper error handling, to avoid common security vulnerabilities like cross-site request forgery (CSRF), SQL injection, and cross-site scripting (XSS).
4. Conduct Automated Application Testing
Mendix solutions offers automated testing tools and supports third-party tools to help you scan your application logic and microflows as you build your app. The Mendix Application Quality Monitor (AQM) offers insights into your application models’ quality during app development. Its dashboards offer high-level details and let you visualize everything to the microflow level. This way, you can identify and fix any issues in your microflows before deploying the app.
Also, Mendix offers AI-assisted development, and its virtual co-developer bots can help you identify issues in your code. Leveraging the power of these two bots can help you discover problems early in the development stage.
What’s more, you can integrate automated security testing into the Mendix Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment) pipeline. Doing so will ensure security testing is done automatically and consistently with each iteration.
5. Conduct Security Penetration Testing
Penetration testing helps you test your application, simulating real-world attacks. It allows you to identify vulnerabilities in your Mendix app that may not be identified by automated testing. Since you simulate attacks, you can perform deeper testing on the vulnerabilities that hackers may exploit.
This may include APIs, integrations with other systems, and interfaces. Combining automated testing with manual penetration techniques allows you to thoroughly evaluate your application’s security.
6. Educate Your Developers
Mendix offers robust security features. However, that doesn’t change the fact that developers must take appropriate security measures to protect their apps. Therefore, you must educate and train your Mendix developers to ensure they securely understand the key concepts of building apps.
You should educate your developers on various aspects, such as Mendix app security practices, common security risks, and their mitigation techniques. Doing so will ensure the proactive integration of security testing into the Mendix development process.
Mendix also offers various certification programs to help your developers assess their ability to develop the Mendix application. You can encourage them to take these courses to determine their level of expertise in building secure applications with Mendix.
7. Continuous Monitoring
Mendix supports the agile development framework, which advocates continuous development and improvement. In terms of security integration, you can implement constant monitoring practices to detect security vulnerabilities in real-time.
But how do you continuously monitor your application? Well, Mendix provides monitoring tools, such as the APM, which offers insights into your application, including proactive quality monitoring and automated testing. This way, you can identify and fix security and performance issues in real-time, ensuring your app functions optimally.
8. Regularly Review and Update Security Controls
Security is not a one-time-off thing. Therefore, you should constantly review and update your application’s security controls to adapt to the changing security risks and threat landscape. Stay updated with the latest security updates and patches for the Mendix platform and its dependencies. This will ensure your Mendix app is secure against emerging threats.
How Mendix Supports the Integration of Security Testing into the Development Process
Mendix provides a one-stop solution for building secure low-code applications. It includes security testing tools, out-of-the-box security features, and governance tools to ensure you create high-quality and secure applications. For instance, it offers automated testing tools and governance tools to ensure you have control over who has what access to your application elements. Therefore, it provides complete oversight of the development process while offering security tools and features for testing your application at all development stages.
Final Thoughts
Integrating security testing into the Mendix development process ensures you build a secure application from known and emerging threats. You can create a thoroughly-tested, secure, and high-performance Mendix app by adhering to the practices listed in this article. So, why wait? Start integrating security testing as part of your Mendix development process for secure and effective applications.
