News

Survey Shows Gap Between Developers, Corporate Security Priorities

• By Becky Nagel
• September 27, 2006

A recent survey of 400 U.S.-based application developers and programmers showed that while those who build Web applications are more concerned about security than ever before, corporate resources and processes that increase application security aren’t as forthcoming.

According to the survey released last week, which was conducted in June by Applied Research, and sponsored by security vendor Symantec, 93 percent of the developers and programmers who responded said that secure application development is a higher priority than it was three years ago, with 35 percent ranking it as their No. 1 priority.

But while those building the applications seem to get the need for security, those employing them don’t seem to have caught on quite as strongly. For example, of those surveyed, only 65 percent say that security is part of their company’s QA process, and only 12 percent report that security is always a priority over meeting deadlines.

Even so, 69 percent said that their employer either emphasizes or strongly emphasizes application security, and 68 percent report that their companies encourage or require their employees to take “continuing education” covering secure coding.

“Many respondents have received secure coding training in one way or another, but the industry still lacks consistent, formalized training both in ‘on the job’ training and under grad/post grad training,” Symantec wrote of the survey’s findings.