Application Security Architecture Cheat Sheet

= Introduction = This cheat sheet offers tips for the initial design and review of an application’s security architecture.

= BUSINESS REQUIREMENTS =

Business Model

 * What is the application’s primary business purpose?
 * How will the application make money?
 * What are the planned business milestones for developing or improving the application?
 * How is the application marketed?
 * What key benefits does application offer its users?
 * What business continuity provisions have been defined for the application?
 * What geographic areas does the application service?

Data Essentials

 * What data does the application receive, produce, and process?
 * How can the data be classified into categories according to its sensitivity?
 * How might an attacker benefit from capturing or modifying the data?
 * What data backup and retention requirements have been defined for the application?

End‐Users

 * Who are the application’s end‐users?
 * How do the end‐users interact with the application?
 * What security expectations do the end‐users have?

Partners

 * Which third‐parties supply data to the application?
 * Which third‐parties receive data from the applications?
 * Which third‐parties process the application’s data?
 * What mechanisms are used to share data with third‐parties besides the application itself?
 * What security requirements do the partners impose?

Administrators

 * Who has administrative capabilities in the application?
 * What administrative capabilities does the application offer?

Regulations

 * In what industries does the application operate?
 * What security‐related regulations apply?
 * What auditing and compliance regulations apply?

= INFRASTRUCTURE REQUIREMENTS =

Network

 * What details regarding routing, switching, firewalling, and load‐balancing have been defined?
 * What network design supports the application?
 * What core network devices support the application?
 * What network performance requirements exist?
 * What private and public network links support the application?

Systems

 * What operating systems support the application?
 * What hardware requirements have been defined?
 * What details regarding required OS components and lock‐down needs have been defined?

Infrastructure Monitoring

 * What network and system performance monitoring requirements have been defined?
 * What mechanisms exist to detect malicious code or compromised application components?
 * What network and system security monitoring requirements have been defined?

Virtualization and Externalization
= APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS =
 * What aspects of the application lend themselves to virtualization?
 * What virtualization requirements have been defined for the application?
 * What aspects of the product may or may not be hosted via the cloud computing model?

Environment

 * What frameworks and programming languages have been used to create the application?
 * What process, code, or infrastructure dependencies have been defined for the application?
 * What databases and application servers support the application?

Data Processing

 * What data entry paths does the application support?
 * What data output paths does the application support?
 * How does data flow across the application’s internal components?
 * What data input validation requirements have been defined?
 * What data does the application store and how?
 * What data is or may need to be encrypted and what key management requirements have been defined?
 * What capabilities exist to detect the leakage of sensitive data?
 * What encryption requirements have been defined for data in transit over WAN and LAN links?

Access

 * What user privilege levels does the application support?
 * What user identification and authentication requirements have been defined?
 * What user authorization requirements have been defined?
 * What session management requirements have been defined?
 * What access requirements have been defined for URI and Service calls?
 * What user access restrictions have been defined?
 * How are user identities maintained throughout transaction calls?

Application Monitoring

 * What application auditing requirements have been defined?
 * What application performance monitoring requirements have been defined?
 * What application security monitoring requirements have been defined?
 * What application error handling and logging requirements have been defined?
 * How are audit and debug logs accessed, stored, and secured?

Application Design

 * What application design review practices have been defined and executed?
 * How is intermediate or in-process data stored in the application components' memory and in cache?
 * How many logical tiers group the application's components?
 * What staging, testing, and Quality Assurance requirements have been defined?

= SECURITY PROGRAM REQUIREMENTS =

Operations

 * What is the process for identifying and addressing vulnerabilities in the application?
 * What is the process for identifying and addressing vulnerabilities in network and system components?
 * What access to system and network administrators have to the application's sensitive data?
 * What security incident requirements have been defined?
 * How do administrators access production infrastructure to manage it?
 * What physical controls restrict access to the application's components and data?
 * What is the process for granting access to the environment hosting the application?

Change Management

 * How are changes to the code controlled?
 * How are changes to the infrastructure controlled?
 * How is code deployed to production?
 * What mechanisms exist to detect violations of change management practices?

Software Development

 * What data is available to developers for testing?
 * How do developers assist with troubleshooting and debugging the application?
 * What requirements have been defined for controlling access to the applications source code?
 * What secure coding processes have been established?

Corporate

 * What corporate security program requirements have been defined?
 * What security training do developers and administrators undergo?
 * Which personnel oversees security processes and requirements related to the application?
 * What employee initiation and termination procedures have been defined?
 * What application requirements impose the need to enforce the principle of separation of duties?
 * What controls exist to protect a compromised in the corporate environment from affecting production?
 * What security governance requirements have been defined?

= Related Cheat Sheets =

= Authors and Primary Editors =

Lenny Zeltser