Mora Gozani

Mora Gozani

January 14, 2025

Exploring the SDLC Security Landscape – What BlueFlag Has to Offer

Software supply chain attacks have reached a critical inflection point. IDC's 2023 DevSecOps Adoption, Techniques, and Tools Survey shows a staggering 241% increase in organizations reporting a software supply chain attack from 2022 to 2023.(1)

This dramatic surge highlights an urgent need for a new approach to securing the software development lifecycle (SDLC) - one that goes beyond traditional application security to address emerging attack vectors.

Recognizing the evolving attack surface, IDC explored the SDLC security landscape in two recent documents:

We believe the IDC analysis in each of these documents underscores why securing developer identities and implementing comprehensive SDLC security and governance have become critical business imperatives in light of this escalating threat.

The Critical Overlooked Security Gaps in Software Development

The increasing sophistication of attacks has exposed critical gaps in how organizations secure their software supply chains. Traditional security measures often focus solely on code vulnerabilities while overlooking other critical attack vectors. This limited scope creates dangerous blind spots, particularly around developer identities entitlements and behavior, developer tool misconfigurations, and access controls.

"In today’s complex software development environment, securing the identity and access of humans, machines, and endpoints is paramount. Despite its critical importance, this aspect of software supply chain security is often overlooked, even though it plays a central role in many high-profile supply chain attacks," said Katie Norton, research manager, DevSecOps and Software Supply Chain Security at IDC. "The vendors and solutions emerging in this space exemplify a crucial evolution in securing identities and access, highlighting an area of innovation that both technology buyers and suppliers need to prioritize." (2)

The 2022 LastPass breach underscores these risks. Attackers exploited compromised developer credentials to infiltrate the software supply chain and exfiltrate proprietary source code. This incident, along with others, highlights how developer identities—often granted broad access rights—have become prime targets for cybercriminals.

A New Paradigm for SDLC Security

BlueFlag Security is the only identity-first SDLC security platform that proactively protects, detects, and remediates all three key SDLC attack vectors. Our platform takes a holistic view of the development environment by connecting identities, tools, and code to address risks at their source.

One capability in particular that sets BlueFlag apart is our innovative Activity Intelligence Graph. This AI/ML-powered framework delivers unparalleled visibility into activity patterns across developer identities, teams, and tools. Instead of treating security issues in isolation, it uncovers how seemingly minor risks can combine to create dangerous attack paths.

Today’s sophisticated attacks don’t exploit single vulnerabilities—they leverage a series of toxic interactions. For example, an inactive user account with excessive permissions and unrestricted access to critical repositories becomes a prime target for credential theft. Similarly, a developer bypassing branch protection rules while exhibiting suspicious commit patterns may signal an insider threat attempting to compromise the codebase.

Traditional application security tools often operate in silos, treating each issue as an isolated incident. IDC's 2024 DevSecOps and Software Supply Chain Security Survey identified enforcing least privilege policies for developer identities and service accounts as the top security measure for safeguarding SDLC environments. However, half of the organizations review SDLC identity entitlements only on a monthly or quarterly basis, with almost a third reviewing even less frequently—biannually or annually. (3)

BlueFlag’s platform provides a unified perspective, transforming this fragmented approach through continuous monitoring and automated controls. By correlating identity entitlements, access patterns, risky behaviors, toolchain configurations, and code security, our platform enables organizations to identify and neutralize complex threats before they can be exploited.

This unique approach doesn’t just enhance security—it redefines how organizations understand and manage risk across the entire software development lifecycle, all while maintaining the velocity required for modern DevOps practices.

(1),(3) IDC Spotlight Paper, “Enhancing Software Supply Chain Security: The Imperative of Comprehensive SDLC Governance,” sponsored by BlueFlag Security

(2) IDC Innovators: Software Development Life-Cycle Identity and Access, 2024 (Doc # US52748124, December 2024)

Learn More About the Future of SDLC Security

IDC Innovators: Software Development Life-Cycle Identity and Access, 2024

Review an excerpt of the report for detailed insights into why BlueFlag Security was named an IDC Innovator.

[BlueFlag Security Assessment] IDC Innovators: Software Development Life-Cycle Identity and Access, 2024

Review BlueFlag Security's Assessment profile from the 2024 Innovators Report, including an in-depth look at our key differentiators and unique approach to SDLC security.

An IDC Innovators report presents a set of vendors – under $100M in annual revenue at the time of selection – chosen by an IDC analyst within a specific market that offer a new technology, a groundbreaking solution to an existing issue, and/or an innovative business model. It is not an exhaustive evaluation or a comparative ranking of all companies, but rather a document that highlights innovative companies in a specific market segment. IDC INNOVATOR and IDC INNOVATORS are trademarks of International Data Group, Inc.

[IDC Spotlight Paper] Enhancing Software Supply Chain Security: The Imperative of Comprehensive SDLC Governance

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