Agile Application Security

Chapter 16. What Does Agile Security Mean?

Agile, and Agile security, mean different things to different people and can be done in different ways.

Each of us has had very different experiences with Agile security, and different stories to tell. We’ve encountered different problems and have come up with different solutions. And we would like to share some of this with you.

Laura’s Story

My pathway to getting here has been wobbly, a career made largely of serendipity and asking people, “But what if?” at the worst possible moments.

My friends and security community in New Zealand know me as a security cat herder, and a chaotic force (hopefully for good), but not someone that people really understand to begin with.

I’ve skipped a bit though. Let me show you how I got here (please stay with me; it’s relevant, I promise).

Not an Engineer but a Hacker

I’m from a family of people who get stuff done. We build things: bridges, helicopters, biochemical things. It’s in our blood. We are a group of people who don’t so much like the rules and formalities of our fields, but each of us is excellent at asking, “How can I do x?” and just doing it anyway. We are scrappy fighters who love to build things and make them better, faster, and stronger.

In my family, this was called hacking, and I never questioned it.

For various reasons, my childhood dream of being Sculley from the X-Files never happened, and I found myself employed as an apprentice software developer (in COBOL) ...