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Where fortify fits

Clement Pickering is head of testing, design and methodology. “As an organization we are an extremely large holder of data,” he agrees. “We are an information business, and data really underpins everything we do. Also, the nature of our business potentially makes us a key target for ‘hackers,’ so it’s very important that we have strong security measures in place to counteract any kind of threat that we might find ourselves under.”

A proof of concept on two of Callcredit’s Internet-facing financial services products – an anti-money-laundering application, and a product to assess people against over-indebtedness – helped finalize the purchase decision. Says Pickering, “We were surprised that the scans immediately highlighted some critical vulnerabilities in the code. That testing certainly demonstrated the benefit of Fortify SCA straight away.”

Agile development

Fortify is integrated into the entire development lifecycle at Callcredit. At the beginning of the process, developers write code on their local workstations. They have Fortify SCA installed on their workstations, usually through the Visual Studio plug-in or the Audit Workbench tool. The developers are encouraged to run scans on their local machines before making any major check-ins.

When code is checked in, it triggers a build on the build servers. “Certainly on a nightly basis we will run a Fortify scan over the entire code base, which of course includes the latest development changes that people have entered,” says Pickering. The principal developers on the project then look at the results and immediately correct any vulnerabilities revealed by the scan. In a monthly review, Pickering and a member of the security team look at general long-term trends to see what projects are being scanned, how frequently scans are taking place, and what vulnerabilities have been uncovered.

Finally, Fortify is incorporated into the change control process. “Our acceptance into service or request for change process now essentially asks for the results of the successful Fortify scan,” says Pickering. “We aim to make sure we don’t release any applications that have critical or high vulnerabilities. Fortify SCA is absolutely part of our process now, and that’s why it works so well – it’s an automatic step that is triggered on build, not something you have to remember to do.”

The ability to scan a broad range of languages with Fortify is an important feature, according to Pickering. “We don’t use one language exclusively,” he explains. “We use .NET, including some VB .NET legacy but mainly C-sharp; we have T-SQL code; and we also have some C++, VB6, and PHP. It’s critical that we can scan all of those different code bases with Fortify.” Callcredit occasionally outsources development, but most applications are created and maintained by the in-house staff of approximately 80 developers. Third-party code is also scanned with Fortify SCA.

Catch it early

Callcredit had a strong application security policy prior to implementing Fortify, but the emphasis was on end-of-lifecycle activities – penetration testing, for example, or using a third-party security assessment company prior to release. “The penetration testing by itself wouldn’t necessarily find all the problems,” recalls Pickering. “If we paid a third party to do a more comprehensive security assessment, it would potentially be more effective but also far more costly. And then, of course, it wasn’t real-time – we couldn’t react as quickly. The key difference with Fortify is that we’ve integrated it continuously throughout the lifecycle.”

Pickering is a big believer in this approach. “Anything that you leave to the end generally increases risk,” he says. “It also severely limits your ability to do anything about it, especially if you’ve committed to client timeframes. What’s more, problems that you find later in the lifecycle will inevitably cost far more to fix, based on the time and effort it takes to correct them and the number of people that have to get involved. You also have to consider the potential impact of release delays on time to market. All of which adds up to additional cost, so finding vulnerabilities and fixing them early is more cost-effective.”

Results

Business Benefits Beyond the obvious advantage of reducing security risk through more secure code, Pickering points to regulatory compliance as a major benefit of Callcredit’s Fortify implementation. “That was one of the key reasons for buying the tool in the first place,” he says. “Our use of Fortify SCA basically meets the requirement of doing 100% code review. There’s no question it has helped us massively with PCI compliance.” Pickering anticipates that Fortify will prove equally valuable to Callcredit as the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) regulations continue to evolve.

Fortify has also helped create a stronger focus on security within the development organization. “It certainly has heightened awareness of secure coding practice,” Pickering continues. “I would say the tool has been a catalyst to get people to think more about it. Before integrating Fortify into our lifecycle, we ran a secure coding course for developers; but the tool almost acts as the thing that prompts people to not forget about it. I think it certainly has helped our developers become more skilled in this regard.”

When Callcredit initially ran Fortify against its legacy code base several years ago, the scan results revealed a number of vulnerabilities. Today, that has changed. “What we have found with the greenfield projects we’ve done since then – basically, applications that we’re developing from scratch – is that we have an extremely low number of vulnerabilities,” says Pickering. “In fact, some of our most recent applications have found zero vulnerabilities using Fortify SCA. The development teams have been able to essentially eradicate issues before they build them in

Early and often

In summarizing the overriding benefit of Fortify SCA at Callcredit, Pickering returns to the notion of “early and often.” “I think the key thing for us is it allows us to bring security early into the process and have it run continuously throughout,” he says. “To me, that is the major advantage – having Fortify scans built in as an intrinsic part of the day-to-day development lifecycle, as opposed to something that’s done by a separate team at the end.” Minimizing security-related delays and lengthy feedback cycles allows Callcredit to remain responsive while reducing the risk of exposure to incidents that could damage the business.

Of the many Fortify SCA features that Callcredit appreciates, Pickering points to automation as his personal favorite. “The fact that we can integrate Fortify via command line into our continuous build process is absolutely vital,” he concludes. “If it relied on a manual interface, it would be a major problem for us. The automation is something I like very much: The scanning happens automatically, and the results get logged in the Fortify server automatically. Fortify SCA is an excellent fit in our agile development environment.”