What is code security?
Code security, or secure coding, refers to the practices, workflows, and tools that developers use to write secure code for applications, software, and systems. It involves various activities that aim to prevent, detect, and mitigate security risks from development through deployment.
It also minimizes the presence of vulnerabilities within code that malicious actors could leverage. These vulnerabilities take various forms, such as SQL injection flaws that allow unauthorized database access or buffer overflows that enable attackers to execute arbitrary code.
The State of Code Security Report [2025]
Code security isn’t just about vulnerability scanning—repository misconfigurations and secrets exposure remain some of the biggest risks. The State of Code Security Report 2025 found that 61% of organizations have secrets exposed in public repositories, and 80% of GitHub workflows have insecure permissions
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Common types of code vulnerabilities
Below are some of the more common code vulnerabilities that organizations see:
| Vulnerability | Description |
|---|---|
| SQL injection | An attacker inserts or manipulates SQL queries in the input fields, causing the database to execute them. This can lead to unauthorized data manipulation or access. |
| Cross-site scripting (XSS) | XSS vulnerabilities occur when an application includes unvalidated and unescaped user input as part of HTML output. This allows attackers to execute malicious scripts in a user’s browser and potentially steal cookies, session tokens, or other sensitive information that could lead to identity theft. |
| Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) | This type of attack forces an end user to execute unwanted actions on a web application in which they’re currently authenticated. CSRF attacks specifically target state-changing requests, not data theft, since the attacker has no way to see the response to the forged request. |
| Buffer overflow | This type of attack occurs when a program writes more data to a buffer than it can hold. This can lead to arbitrary code execution, where an attacker could take control of a system. |
| Hard-coded credential usage | If the codebase is exposed, embedding fixed usernames and passwords in source code allows attackers to gain unauthorized access. |
5 challenges of implementing code security
Secure code protects your organization from vulnerabilities like those above. However, implementing code security best practices does have its challenges. Below are the most common ones that organizations face, along with relevant findings from Wiz’s 2025 code security research:
1. Balancing security with speed and functionality
Developers often face tight deadlines and pressure to release features quickly, which can lead to shortcuts in security practices. For example, 80% of workflow permissions aren’t secure, which exposes teams to risk even though safer defaults are available in repositories.
Besides real trade-offs between security, speed, and functionality, there are also perceived trade-offs, as some developers still hesitate to adopt CI/CD tools despite their security and automation benefits.
2. Building a culture of security awareness
Not all developers prioritize security or have sufficient training in secure coding practices. As a result, 44% of orgs have at least one public repository that contains sensitive data.
Our research also found widespread use of insecure GitHub default settings—a majority of organizations have at least one private repository that contains secrets.
Ultimately, daily workflows don’t often have built-in security, but a lack of awareness isn’t the only culprit. Some teams simply aren’t in the habit of prioritizing security yet, while others are fighting an uphill battle to overcome internal resistance to mindset shifts.
3. Integrating security tools and processes
The abundance of security tools on the market can overwhelm developers, leading to tool fatigue, misconfigurations, or abandonment.
Case in point: GitHub Apps often have dangerous scopes, like pull_requests with WRITE permissions in about 80% of apps and contents with WRITE permissions in about 77%. This amplifies risk through overuse of third-party tools.
Ultimately, there’s a preference for convenience over tight control. While poor management of security testing and reviews can disrupt existing workflows, it’s also a challenge to implement security tools and processes without introducing bottlenecks, vulnerabilities, or complexity.
4. Keeping up with evolving threats
New vulnerabilities and attack methods emerge constantly and thus require continuous vigilance and updates. For example, it’s critical to be aware of what Wiz calls “toxic combinations” and understand how secrets in code link to exploitable cloud contexts.
However, developers often lack the time, support, or resources to stay up-to-date on the latest threats and best practices. As a result, CI/CD hardening practice adoption lags.
High-profile attacks like XZ Utils and ShinyHunters demonstrate how sophisticated, fast-evolving threat vectors can evade traditional code-level defenses.
5. Managing third-party dependencies
Vulnerabilities in open-source libraries or third-party components can introduce risks into applications. For example, attacks via dependency confusion and repo takeovers (like polyfill.js) show how easy it is to compromise apps via malicious or hijacked packages.
These risks are higher because many organizations don’t thoroughly vet and monitor third-party code, and they also lack visibility into and control over external dependency security.
How does code security fit into the development process?
Code security is essential at every stage of the software development life cycle (SDLC). Here’s how to integrate security best practices into each phase:
Planning: When gathering requirements and designing your system, plan for essential security measures like encryption, authentication, and access controls. For example, if you anticipate needing encrypted data storage, design for it upfront—retrofitting security later can be costly and complex. Also, apply the principle of least privilege when defining roles and permissions since it’s easier to grant additional access later than to revoke it after a breach.
Coding: By default, engineers should write secure code that follows secure coding guidelines, validates inputs, and avoids common vulnerabilities (such as SQL injection or buffer overflows). Additionally, be sure to document security decisions and vet third-party libraries or dependencies for security risks.
Testing: Expand your testing beyond basic functionality to include security-focused tests like code reviews, static and dynamic analysis, and penetration testing. Then, verify that your implementation aligns with security best practices and that new features don’t introduce new risks.
Deployment: Security doesn’t end when code ships—so harden your deployment environments by securing configuration files, secrets, and infrastructure. You should also protect your CI/CD pipelines so only authorized personnel can deploy to production, monitor for vulnerabilities, and be ready to respond quickly to any issues post-deployment.
By embedding security at each SDLC phase, you reduce risk, lower remediation costs, and build more resilient software from the ground up.
Code security tools and techniques
There are plenty of methods to ensure code security. Let’s look at a few popular options:
Static application security testing (SAST): SAST tools analyze source code or binaries for security vulnerabilities without executing the application. They also integrate with IDEs and CI/CD pipelines but require support for each programming language.
Dynamic application security testing (DAST): DAST tools test running applications for security issues, including configuration and runtime vulnerabilities. They interact with applications over standard protocols like HTTP, which makes them language-agnostic.
Infrastructure as Code (IaC) security: IaC security tools scan infrastructure templates during development to detect vulnerabilities and misconfigurations before deployment. This helps teams automate compliance and prevent insecure infrastructure from reaching production.
Automated code reviews: AI-powered code review tools help you identify security issues in pull requests before teams merge code. While they may produce false positives or negatives, automated reviews are valuable—especially when human review is limited.
Secure coding frameworks and libraries: Frameworks like Spring (Java), Django (Python), and Express with Helmet (Node.js) offer built-in security features for authentication, authorization, and protection against common vulnerabilities, which promote secure development practices.
Code security best practices and how to implement them
Now, let’s look at some simple best practices to integrate into your development process:
Prioritize security from the start
Embrace a “security by design” mindset by integrating security considerations into every stage of the development lifecycle. To catch issues early, embed security checklists into your planning docs, code reviews, and CI/CD workflows.
Conduct regular threat modeling to proactively identify and address potential vulnerabilities before malicious actors can exploit them. Frameworks like STRIDE or DREAD, for instance, help you systematically analyze potential risks in new features during sprint planning.
Educate developers on secure coding principles using training and resources so they can write secure code from the outset. To start, incorporate security modules into onboarding—but don’t stop there. Be sure to also reinforce this knowledge with periodic secure coding workshops or micro-learning sessions for your team.
Protect sensitive data with encryption and hashing
Implement proper key management to protect encryption keys and ensure their confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Managed key services like AWS KMS, Azure Key Vault, and HashiCorp Vault are helpful for lifecycle management and access control.
Apply salted hashing techniques (like bcrypt or Argon2) to store passwords securely and render them virtually impossible to reverse engineer. You can maintain strong password security by sticking with reputable libraries that handle salt generation and work factor settings automatically.
Use industry-standard encryption algorithms (like AES-256) to safeguard sensitive data, both at rest and in transit. For data in transit, enable TLS/SSL, and for data at rest, configure encryption at the database or volume level.
Implement robust authentication and authorization
Incorporate multi-factor authentication to significantly enhance account security. No matter the system—dev, staging, or production—you should enable MFA using authenticator apps or hardware tokens.
Enforce granular authorization controls based on user roles and permissions to ensure that users only access the resources and functionality that they need. Role-based access control and attribute-based access control are the best frameworks for defining least-privilege policies.
Validate user-supplied data meticulously to prevent unauthorized access via techniques like SQL injection and XSS. For greater visibility, apply a centralized input validation library across all endpoints and log rejections, too.
Consider code signing certificates to establish your code’s authenticity and integrity and safeguard against unauthorized modifications. Just be sure to use trusted certificate authorities and enforce signature verification at runtime.
Code defensively to prevent vulnerabilities
Adhere to secure coding standards and guidelines (like OWASP Top 10 and SANS Top 25) to mitigate common attack vectors. SAST tools will be helpful here to flag violations against these standards during development.
Prioritize input validation and sanitization to neutralize any malicious code or characters within user-provided data. Just remember that it’s best to centralize input sanitation logic using well-tested libraries rather than custom scripts.
Employ prepared statements and parameterized queries to shield against SQL injection attacks. However, make sure you’re using ORM libraries or secure query builders that inherently support safe query composition.
Properly encode outputs to thwart XSS vulnerabilities. You should also escape dynamic content before rendering it in HTML, JavaScript, or URL contexts using output-encoding libraries.
Maintain vigilance through testing and updates
Conduct regular security testing, including penetration testing and vulnerability scanning. This will mean automating scans in CI/CD and scheduling manual pen tests at least quarterly for high-risk systems.
Address identified vulnerabilities promptly and prioritize those with the highest potential for exploitation. You can use CVSS scores and exploitability ratings to triage issues and establish SLAs for resolution timelines.
Keep software, libraries, and frameworks updated with the latest patches. Ideally, you should automate dependency updates with break-the-build policies.
Uphold the principle of least privilege
Assign users and processes only the minimum permissions they need for their tasks to minimize unauthorized access’s potential impact. To further limit privilege creep, regularly review IAM roles and access logs and frequently rotate credentials.
Restrict access to sensitive resources and functionality based on explicit need and authorization. To strengthen this approach, tag critical assets and enforce conditional access policies using identity-aware proxies or policy engines like OPA.
Secure configurations and protect administrative accounts
Configure systems and applications securely and disable unnecessary features and services. During deployment, adopt hardened images and apply security baselines like CIS Benchmarks to ensure consistent protection.
Enforce strong passwords and access controls for admin accounts. To strengthen account protection further, you should require long, complex passwords that you store in password managers and restrict admin logins to trusted IPs.
Regularly monitor and audit system logs for suspicious activity or potential intrusions. Your SIEM tool should centralize these logs and allow you to configure alerts for anomalous behaviors like privilege escalation or brute-force attempts.
Overall, there’s a lot you can do to ensure code security within your organization—but you don't have to tackle all these best practices alone.
Wiz’s approach to code security
Wiz Code provides numerous powerful capabilities for securing the cloud software development process and speeding up issue resolution, all while integrating seamlessly into development workflows. Below are just a few ways that it helps organizations implement and maintain code security best practices:
Catch real risks before deployment by scanning for vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, secrets, and sensitive data directly in code, pull requests, and CI/CD pipelines—with cloud context to prioritize what matters most.
Trace issues across the entire stack by linking runtime threats, container issues, and cloud misconfigurations back to their origin in source code, repositories, or CI/CD systems.
Remediate using the tools that are already in your stack with inline fix suggestions and one-click pull requests inside your IDE or pipeline. This eliminates tool switching and guesswork.
Secure the full software supply chain through image integrity verification, third-party component tracking via software bill of materials, and policy enforcement across every SDLC stage.
By leveraging Wiz Code, you can significantly enhance your code security practices, reduce risk, and accelerate secure software delivery. This innovative solution not only protects your organization but also fosters a culture of security-first development, which ultimately leads to more resilient, trustworthy software products.
But of course, staying up-to-date on the latest in code security also plays a huge role in the success of your code security initiatives. For more on the state of code security in 2025 and how to identify risks in your own code repositories, grab Wiz’s free report today.
