Secure Software Development
Practical patterns for building secure software
By Kubilay Tunca
Write, Ship, and Maintain Code Without Shipping Vulnerabilities
A hands-on security guide for developers and IT professionals who ship real software. Build, deploy, and maintain secure systems without slowing down or drowning in theory.
Buy on AmazonAs an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Buying through these links costs you nothing extra and helps pay for the blog.
About this book
Security training for developers usually arrives as a taxonomy: here are ten categories of vulnerability, here is a definition of each, please do not write them. It is knowledge organised for an exam rather than for the moment you are actually writing the code.
Secure Software Development is organised around the decisions you make while building instead. Handling input, deciding who may do what, storing a secret, taking on a dependency, wiring a deployment pipeline. Each chapter starts from the thing you are trying to ship and shows the pattern that holds up, alongside the near-miss version that looks equivalent and is not.
The examples are real code, and the failures are real failures — including why the obvious fix is often the one that leaves the hole open. It is written for engineers under delivery pressure, on the assumption that a control which costs too much to use will simply not be used.
What you will learn
- How to validate and encode input at the right boundary rather than everywhere and nowhere
- How to build authentication and authorisation that survives the second and third feature request
- How to handle secrets, keys, and credentials through the whole lifecycle rather than at rest only
- How to assess and contain a dependency before it becomes your supply chain
- How to add meaningful security gates to CI/CD without turning the pipeline into a queue
Read this if
- You write and ship production code, and security keeps arriving as a ticket after the fact.
- You review other people’s pull requests and want to catch more than style.
- You are the closest thing your team has to a security person.
- You have read the OWASP Top Ten and still are not sure what to change on Monday.
Skip this if
This is not a certification study guide and it does not map to exam objectives. It is also not a penetration-testing book — the perspective throughout is the person building the system, not the person attacking it.
Topics covered
- secure coding
- application security
- authentication
- authorisation
- secrets management
- dependency security
- CI/CD security
- threat modelling
- code review
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Read the author first
These free articles cover the same ground as Secure Software Development. If the writing works for you here, the book is more of it.
- The SAP SDK Patch Needs a Behavior Test
SAP disclosed a credential-leaking flaw in its Cloud SDK for Python, while independent testing found the repaired behavior missing from six later releases. The durable fix is an upgrade plus a small test at the trust boundary.
- A Seized Hacker Domain Is Not an Eviction Receipt
Authorities disrupted two tools used in China-linked intrusions. Network defenders still need to find the route in, the foothold left behind, and the authority that may have been copied.
- Your AI Evaluation Is Production If It Can Press Submit
Anthropic found that models in evaluations had acted on real websites, including submitting a false police tip. The useful lesson is architectural: a test run with real external effects needs production boundaries.
- The SonicWall Gateway Needs an Inside-Out Check
Researchers saw attempts to exploit a critical SonicWall SMA1000 flaw days after a fix appeared. Patch the gateway, then check what the gateway could reach as a trusted internal caller.
Questions
- Who is Secure Software Development for?
- You write and ship production code, and security keeps arriving as a ticket after the fact. You review other people’s pull requests and want to catch more than style. You are the closest thing your team has to a security person. You have read the OWASP Top Ten and still are not sure what to change on Monday. This is not a certification study guide and it does not map to exam objectives. It is also not a penetration-testing book — the perspective throughout is the person building the system, not the person attacking it.
- What will I learn from Secure Software Development?
- How to validate and encode input at the right boundary rather than everywhere and nowhere. How to build authentication and authorisation that survives the second and third feature request. How to handle secrets, keys, and credentials through the whole lifecycle rather than at rest only. How to assess and contain a dependency before it becomes your supply chain. How to add meaningful security gates to CI/CD without turning the pipeline into a queue.
- Who wrote Secure Software Development?
- Kubilay Tunca, Senior Full Stack Developer and Author. Founded Cyber Security in Plain English to translate complex security concepts into clear, practical advice, and writes the accompanying books on security, privacy, secure development, and AI systems.
- Where can I buy Secure Software Development?
- Secure Software Development is available on Amazon. The listing is linked from this page.
Write, Ship, and Maintain Code Without Shipping Vulnerabilities
A hands-on security guide for developers and IT professionals who ship real software. Build, deploy, and maintain secure systems without slowing down or drowning in theory.
Buy on AmazonAs an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Buying through these links costs you nothing extra and helps pay for the blog.