10 Steps To Secure Your Authentication System | FusionAuth Docs/Articles

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🤖 For AI agents: The complete documentation index is available at /docs/llms.txt. A markdown version of this page is available at /articles/security/steps-secure-your-authentication-system.md.<br>10 Steps To Secure Your Authentication System<br>By Mihir Patel

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Building an authentication system can be both time and cost-intensive for system engineers. Traditionally, organizations have maintained servers dedicated to authentication. Nowadays, third-party authentication providers like FusionAuth help minimize internal maintenance costs and improve security by keeping up with modern best practices for their users.

Whether your authentication is built in-house or relies on a third-party provider, several specific factors are essential. These include speed, availability, disaster recovery, SOC 2 compliance, and security protocols to protect systems and user credentials.

The complexity of your authentication systems depends on the industry you operate in. If you're in medical or healthcare, extra precautions are commonplace. Comparatively, regulations for social media companies are much less demanding.

Regardless of industry, all organizations should take steps to protect their systems. In this article, I'll break down some of the essential steps developers need to take to maintain a secure authentication system. Some of these can be automated, while others are processes that will require work across departments, but all will increase the security of your auth system.

1. DevSecOps (Shift Left)#

Ensure DevSecOps standards are set in place to allow for security testing during the early stages of development.

Traditional security testing happens just before or after the release. This can be too late for security testing. It can also lead to unexpected delays to critical deadlines if there are security issues to be found later.

DecSecOps dictates that rather than testing for security during or after release, security planning is introduced during each phase of the DevOps pipeline. This allows testing to happen earlier in the software development cycle. The benefit of this approach is the codebase is secure and tested for security before being accepted into the build.

DevSecOps does not replace traditional security testing.

Frequency : security checks should be run every time code is accepted to build that is ready to be released into production.

2. Regular Security Reviews#

Information security reviews must be performed to identify and mitigate risks whenever a new infrastructure is stood up. Reviews must also be performed when significant changes are made to an existing system or when you're permitting a third-party access to internal systems.

Security controls are implemented by the Information Security team, so developers should account for them while building or changing a system. For example, a developer should understand what cryptographic algorithms are approved for use within an organization. Going against a security policy can cause unexpected delays, so developers should perform information security reviews ahead of time.

Frequency : conduct whenever a new system is stood up or major changes are made to a system.

3. Static Code Analysis#

Static code analysis is the analysis of code repositories performed without executing the code itself (analysis on running programs is called “dynamic analysis”). Static code analysis uncovers suboptimal and inefficient code, signaling engineering teams to fix the issues. This process means a team only ships quality, reliable code.

Static code analysis is not the same thing as a code review. Static code analysis is done by a machine, whereas code review is done by a human. Essentially, static code analysis is automated—code reviews are manual.

Some editors, such as Visual Code, contain built-in static analysis tools. A relatively complete list can be found on Wikipedia.

Frequency : run every time during PR merge or releases as a minimum. But if you don't want to delay your releases, it's best to run them during development.

4. Penetration Testing#

A penetration test (pen test) is a brute force technique conducted by cybersecurity hackers to highlight vulnerabilities. Penetration tests are run by in-house employees or contractors who mimic the actions of an attacker.

There are three types of pen testing: white box provides the tester with all the details about an organization's system, black box provides the tester with no knowledge of the system, and gray box provides the tester with partial knowledge.

Frequency : penetration testing should be done at least once a year.

5. Bug Bounty Program#

A bug bounty program is a reward program offered by an organization that incentivizes the reporting of bugs and vulnerabilities. This is a great way to outsource discovery of security bugs...