In this live recording from BSidesSF we explore the factors that influence a secure design, talk about how to avoid the bite of UX dragons, and why designs should put classes of vulns into dungeons.

But we can't threat model a secure design forever and we can't oversimplify guidance for a design to be "more secure". Kalyani Pawar and Jack Cable join the discussion to provide advice on evaluating secure designs through examples of strong and weak designs we've seen over the years. We highlight the importance of designing systems to serve users and consider what it means to have a secure design with a poor UX. As we talk about the strategy and tactics of secure design, we share why framing this as a challenge in preventing dangerous errors can help devs make practical engineering decisions that improve appsec for everyone.

Resources

• https://owasp.org/Top10/A042021-InsecureDesign/
• https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/1251421.1251435
• https://www.threatmodelingmanifesto.org
• https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc9700.html
• https://www.cisa.gov/resources-tools/resources/secure-by-design

Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/asw-328