A security administrator was recently hired in a start-up company to represent the interest of security and to assist the network team in improving security in the company. The programmers are not…

Raising security issues in the middle of a project means core architectural and design decisions are already fixed, making security changes more disruptive and costly to implement.

Addressing security at the end of the project requires the most expensive rework, as completed code must be redesigned or refactored to meet security requirements after the fact.

Integrating security at the inception of a project follows the Secure Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) principle of shifting security left, ensuring that threat modeling, secure design, and security requirements are built into the architecture from the start. Defects and risks identified early in development are exponentially cheaper to remediate than those discovered after code is written or the product is deployed. This approach also reduces friction because developers address security as part of normal design work rather than as a disruptive afterthought.

Allowing developers to choose when to address security cedes control of security requirements to stakeholders who have already indicated they will deprioritize those concerns.