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Security debt

Security debt is a type of technical debt that occurs when an organization fails to prioritize information security dependencies at the beginning of a project.

Security debt is developer lingo for "work we owe." Like monetary debt, security debt must eventually be paid. Just as failure to pay down a financial debt on time will result in additional charges, failure to pay down security debt can result in additional risk -- both financial and reputational.

Security debt can be surfaced in several ways, including through:

  • User bug reports
  • Publicly disclosed flaws
  • Fuzz testing
  • Pen testing
  • Static analysis tools

To reduce security debt, software developers should include security testing early in the software development life cycle and automate patch management as much as possible.

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