Applications and shift-left security

Application security is critical as it serves to protect against a variety of threats, including malicious attacks that compromise application functionality, unauthorised access to sensitive information, the injection of malicious code, and/or data-leaks. The shift-left approach to application security is a strategy that aims to encourage security checks from the early stages of the software development process. In our analysis we examine how and when – during the software development process – security measures are implemented. We additionally examine what factors contribute to developers implementing various types of security and the amount of security checks they take.