This Rules/Policy document is provided to you and your organization as a starting point or maturity checkpoint for existing rules/policies. It is brought to you on behalf of Jim McConnell, Principal Owner, and Ask McConnell, LLC — A Converged Security Services Provider. The content is not meant to cover every circumstance, industry, law, regulation, contractual requirement, threat, environment, or risk, but it provides an easy, defendable, highly accountable starting point for any organization. Please consult with your legal counsel and insurance provider about added requirements. If you know of peers that you think would find value in these resources, please have them contact us. These will be updated on our website regularly. We are not legally protecting these documents; we just ask for credit, shout-outs, and referrals if you find them helpful. If you have recommended updates, we are all ears. And if you need Converged Security Consulting and Training, please reach out, we would be honored to serve you and your organization.
Jim McConnell | info@askmcconnell.com | askmcconnell.com
Secure Software Development Policy
Updated: 8 April 2025
Protecting human lives is the highest requirement of our entire organization, whether they are employees, customers, volunteers, visitors, or part of our supply chain while under some nexus to our organization. Many times things we do online will impact people’s lives physically, financially, and emotionally.
- I will report security incidents, concerns, vulnerabilities, and threats to my supervisor or the organization’s Ethics Hotline as soon as possible and safe. If they are not available and I feel unsafe, I will contact law enforcement.
- I will not perform any software development or script writing without following these rules.
- I will engage security teams before any internal or outsourced software development project or enhancement begins.
- I will manage any development schedule under my control to ensure security verification and validation — along with code reviews — are completed before advancing through the software lifecycle and into production.
- I will always include security requirements in any new or enhancement software development I perform or manage.
- I will always conform — with independent verification — to established secure coding standards (e.g., CERT, OWASP, STIGs).
- I will always perform static, dynamic, and code security reviews and testing on all software development activities under my management.
- I will always develop software that supports strong secure configurations by default and enforces strict principle of least privilege through access controls.
- I will always update all software, drivers, and libraries during each development, enhancement, and maintenance activity for software under my management control.
- I will attend, deliver, and ensure my team receives proper secure software development training throughout each year.
- I will subscribe to and monitor all software manufacturers’ security notification processes and websites for new vulnerability information and fixes, and integrate mitigations into my overall remediation schedule.
- I will make sure all outsourcing — whether software development or technology services — includes secure software development requirements in the contract.
- I will implement metrics to manage the security and safety aspects of software development under my management control.
- I will manage or support a State of Software Development Security Report and Presentation, under Executive Session, at least yearly — covering incidents, vulnerabilities, improvements, and metrics across all security domains.
Signature Note: I am a huge fan of wet signatures on these types of documents for accountability and investigation reasons. You can add the signature lines below to each rule/policy document, or have a collective wet signature with references in the Security Commitment Agreement document available on the One-Pager library page. Organizational preference.
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Print Full Legal Name
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(Blue Ink) Full Legal Signature
Style of signature must closely match Driver’s License
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Date
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