Original Post: AppSec guides, not gates: Introducing secure guardrails with Semgrep
Security teams often face overwhelm and burnout due to the very tools designed to assist them, with the “shift left” approach in code security exacerbating issues by burdening developers with excessive alerts. This has deteriorated the relationship between development and security teams, creating what is described as a “doom loop” of growing issue backlogs. Successful teams have mitigated these issues by implementing “secure guardrails” that guide rather than block developers in their workflow, promoting the use of secure defaults at critical moments. This approach reduces vulnerabilities, manages backlog effectively, and restores trust between developers and security teams.
Modern AppSec programs, such as those at Figma and Notion, use these guardrails to ensure a fast yet secure development process. Unlike traditional methods, guardrails provide subtle nudges towards secure practices without impeding progress, such as suggesting more secure libraries within an IDE. The effectiveness of secure guardrails is tied to the precision of the underlying scanning tools.
The core components of this strategy—interface, content, and philosophy—emphasize seamless integration into the developer’s workflow, automated fixes aligned with organizational standards, and empowering developers to understand and adjust guardrails. Semgrep exemplifies this approach by running real-time scans and providing immediate, relevant feedback, eliminating the need for developers to engage with separate security platforms. This method balances the power between security teams, who choose the tools, and developers, who write the code.
New features in Semgrep enhance this balance with a reporting dashboard for guardrails versus backlog, an AI-powered “Assistant Memories” for tailored remediation guidance, and a secure defaults ruleset to promote secure coding practices by default.
In conclusion, adopting secure guardrails can help break out of the shift-left doom loop, enabling teams to maintain both speed and security in development. Organizations like Notion, Figma, Netflix, and Google exemplify the benefits of embracing secure guardrails, supported by tools like Semgrep that facilitate their effective implementation.
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