CIS Control 16.1: Establish and Maintain a Secure Application Development Process
A secure application development process is foundational to preventing vulnerabilities before they reach production. CIS Control 16.1 requires you to document and enforce standards across design, coding, training, third-party dependencies, and testing. This control directly reduces the attack surface of custom and integrated applications your organization relies on.
What this means
This control mandates a formal, documented secure software development lifecycle (SDLC) that covers the full spectrum of application creation. You must define secure design standards that guide architects, establish coding practices that developers follow consistently, ensure developers receive security training, manage vulnerabilities as they're discovered, audit and vet third-party code and libraries, and run regular security testing before deployment. Documentation should be reviewed and updated at least annually, or immediately when significant business changes could affect security posture.
How to comply
- 1.Document secure application design standards aligned to your threat model and compliance requirements
- 2.Establish secure coding guidelines and publish them to all development teams with examples
- 3.Mandate application security training for all developers and architects, with refresher cadence
- 4.Implement vulnerability management processes: triage, remediation timelines, and tracking
- 5.Create a third-party code review and approval process, including dependency scanning
- 6.Require security testing before production: SAST, DAST, penetration testing, or code review depending on risk
- 7.Schedule annual documentation review; trigger updates when architecture, tooling, or business context changes
- 8.Assign ownership and accountability for SDLC governance
Evidence auditors look for
- Secure coding standards document with examples for your primary language(s)
- Developer security training records and completion certificates
- Design review checklist and approval logs for new applications
- Vulnerability tracking log with remediation timelines and closure evidence
- Third-party dependency audit report or software composition analysis (SCA) results
- Security test reports (SAST, DAST, code review) before each release
- SDLC policy document with annual review date and sign-off
- Incident or vulnerability post-mortems tied back to SDLC gaps
Frequently asked questions
When will FAQs be available?
The FAQ for this control is currently being prepared.
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