Code review and automated scanning see different risks
Tools find patterns at scale. People find reasoning errors.
Scanning catches the known-dangerous construct in a thousand files. Review catches the authorisation check that looks fine and is one level too high, or the business rule implemented backwards. Organisations frequently buy the first and quietly stop doing the second because it is slower, then wonder why the flaws that matter still ship.
More on Secure development
- Threat modelling asks how a design can fail before code existsBreak it on paper first
- Input validation defines what the application acceptsOne shape fits
- Security requirements are product requirementsThey go on the same sheet
- Security tests should exercise abuse casesThe load nobody specified
- Feature flags can become security statesSomebody left it up
- Error handling should fail predictablyBreak the same way every time