At the rate cybersecurity threats are evolving, businesses and developers must adopt secure coding best practices to protect their applications from vulnerabilities that could lead to data breaches, financial losses, and reputational damage. Whether you're evaluating security tools or researching ways to improve your software development lifecycle, this guide will walk you through proven secure coding practices that minimize risk and strengthen application security.
Cyberattacks exploit weaknesses in software, often through vulnerabilities in the code itself. The cost of a data breach is rising, with organizations losing millions due to weak security measures. Implementing secure coding best practices helps:
If you're looking for the best security solutions to integrate into your software development workflow, understanding these fundamental principles will help you make informed decisions.
If you’d like to see real code examples for any of these, click here.
Unvalidated input is a primary cause of security breaches. To keep your applications secure, always assume input data could be malicious: validate user inputs to ensure they conform to expected formats and lengths.
Sanitize Inputs: Strip out unwanted characters and ensure inputs adhere to expected formats before processing them.
Validate Inputs: Use strict validation rules to check that data matches the required types, lengths, or patterns.
Encode Outputs: Encode user data before rendering it in the UI to prevent exploits like cross-site scripting (XSS).
By implementing these practices, you can shield your applications from vulnerabilities like:
• SQL Injection
• XSS (Cross-Site Scripting)
• RCE (Remote Code Execution)
Read our full step by step guide on how to achieve this here.
Parameterized queries are a secure way of handling user input in database queries. They allow developers to safely insert dynamic values into SQL statements by using placeholders, preventing SQL injection attacks and improving performance.
Parameterized queries work by using placeholders (? or :name) and binding values to user input instead of concatenating the input directly into SQL queries (which is dangerous). This way, the database treats the input as data rather than executable SQL code.
Hardcoding secrets in source code is a dangerous practice that can lead to exposure of valuable information like API keys and sensitive credentials. Instead, developers should use environment variables to store and retrieve sensitive information securely and secrets should be encrypted at rest and in transit, with strict access controls to limit exposure. For best practices on secure data storage and encryption, see step 5.
Similarly, improper error handling can give too much information to attackers, who can use them to find valid usernames, guess passwords, and identify errors. A secure approach to error handling ensures that messages are informative for developers but obscure to potential attackers. For example, instead of displaying raw stack traces or database errors, applications should return generic messages while logging detailed errors internally. Implementing structured exception handling and logging mechanisms helps maintain security while providing the necessary insights to troubleshoot issues effectively.
For a real-world example of what this looks like from a code perspective, click here.
Even if your application is secure against unauthorized access, it’s crucial to protect your data both at rest (data stored in media such as a database or cloud storage) and in transit (data transmitted between your website and server). Unencrypted data is vulnerable to theft and interception, compromising privacy and security, and encryption transforms sensitive data into an unreadable format to protect it from unauthorized access.
Encrypting data at rest with hashing algorithms and data in transit with cryptographic protocols such as Transit Layer Security (TLS) or end-to-end encryption, which encode messages before they are sent and decrypt them at the intended destination, ensures that - even if stolen -your data remains unreadable and useless to attackers.
To secure it:
Overpermissioned code is risky and unnecessary, and the Principle of Least Privilege (PoLP) grants users only the permissions necessary for their job role. For example, a database user performing read-only tasks should not have write or administrative privileges. Since roles and users change regularly, you’ll want to review permissions every quarter to account for organizational changes, role requirements, and business needs. Here are some points to look for:
IAM Roles: Are there roles with “*” permissions or unnecessary admin privileges? Tighten those down to specific actions.
Read our full step-by-step guide to adopting the Principle of Least Privilege here.
Did you know that a significant percentage of breaches can be traced back to outdated or insecure libraries and frameworks? Outdated third-party libraries and dependencies often contain vulnerabilities that hackers can exploit, and as developers, dependency management should be a top priority.
Stay Current: Regularly update third-party libraries and frameworks to the latest secure versions.
Use Dependency Scanning Tools: Automate the process of identifying outdated dependencies and known vulnerabilities.
Patch Promptly: Address vulnerabilities as soon as updates are available—don’t let outdated code become an entry point for attackers.
Read our step by step guide to updating dependencies here.
Use real-time, to identify vulnerabilities before deployment:
Implementing Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) correctly is critical to securing applications, protecting sensitive data, and minimizing attack surfaces by restricting unauthorized access to critical systems and information.
Ways to implement RBAC include clearly defined role hierarchies with distinct access levels and adopting the Principle of Least Privilege (PoLP) as noted above.
You’ll also want to Enforce MFA for All High-Risk Actions, such as administrator accounts and accessing sensitive data like financial transactions. Use strong authentication factors like a password and a PIN, token, phone app, or biometrics.
Secure coding frameworks are structured sets of guidelines, best practices, and coding standards designed to help developers write secure, resilient, and maintainable software. These frameworks mitigate common security vulnerabilities by enforcing secure development principles throughout the software development lifecycle (SDLC).
Some well-known secure coding frameworks include:
• OWASP Secure Coding Practices – A broad set of security best practices covering authentication, data validation, error handling, and more.
• CERT Secure Coding Standards – A set of language-specific secure coding guidelines for C, C++, Java, and other languages.
• NIST Secure Software Development Framework (SSDF) – A comprehensive approach to integrating security into DevSecOps workflows.
Enabling monitoring and logging is critical for detecting security threats, diagnosing issues, and ensuring system reliability. Without proper logs, identifying vulnerabilities, tracking suspicious activities, and responding to incidents becomes nearly impossible.
Monitor and log role changes, privilege escalations, API requests, and failed access attempts for anomaly detection with a centralized tool and retain them for compliance while implementing alerts for unauthorized privilege escalations.
Security is not a one-time effort. Developers must stay informed about emerging threats and secure coding techniques through ongoing training and real-time coaching tools, but can’t sacrifice velocity to do it. Maximize impact and adoption by integrating security training into workflows in a way that’s non invasive and doesn’t curb productivity with short, relevant, interactive lessons.
If you're looking for a developer-friendy security solution that does most of these for you, Symbiotic Security provides an in-IDE AI security tool so you don’t have to. Trained on proprietary, verified, and hyper-focused security data for unmatched accuracy, it helps developers catch and fix vulnerabilities instantly—before they become a problem at all.
It also transforms security issues into learning opportunities with in-context training tailored to your skill level. Instead of disruptive quizzes, you get concise, actionable lessons precisely when and where you need them most, helping you continuously improve your security skills without disrupting your workflow.
With an AI security coach implementing secure coding practices for you, there’s no more wasted time. Security becomes seamless, proactive, developer-friendly - and fast.
Explore how Symbiotic Security can help your team build secure applications effortlessly. Book a Demo Today!
