Secure Coding Best Practices [Cheat Sheet]

The Secure Coding Cheat Sheet is designed to be your comprehensive, go-to resource for embedding security into every stage of your code development. It doesn’t just list recommendations; it provides clear, actionable advice and code examples to help you implement the secure practices.

Key Takeaways:

• Secure APIs: Use OAuth 2.0, JWTs, input validation, and rate limiting to defend against abuse and injection attacks.

• Shift-Left Security Integrate SAST/DAST into CI/CD, conduct security-focused code reviews, and automate testing with tools like Bandit.

• Secrets & IaC Protection Avoid hardcoding secrets, use vaults like AWS Secrets Manager, and scan IaC for misconfigurations.

• Container & Kubernetes Security Use minimal images, run containers as non-root, and apply Kubernetes network policies for segmentation.

• Advanced Practices Avoid unsafe memory functions, securely handle errors and logs, and encrypt sensitive data using AES-256.