The rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in software development forces government agencies and contractors to immediately integrate security into the developer’s critical path. Clinton Herget, Field Chief Technology Officer at Snyk, emphasizes that this necessity defines modern Developer Security. This approach actively secures the software creation process itself, empowering developers to understand the security implications of their decisions in real-time. Instead of receiving a report weeks later, developers now receive instant notifications and guidance within their Integrated Developer Environment (IDE).
Integrating Security in the AI Era
The Snyk platform gives developers a cohesive view of risks across all modern software assets. This includes open-source dependencies, the code itself, containers, cloud infrastructure, and the increasingly important AI assets. The platform pulls all these insights together, advising developers on how to proactively address vulnerabilities as they code.
Three Steps for Software Quality
To ensure software quality and maintain security compliance, Herget outlines three essential steps for government teams.
1. Gain Visibility Agencies must gain comprehensive visibility into their development processes, determining whether code originates from humans or machines and confirming proper controls are in place to ensure compliance with security requirements.
2. Prioritize Issues Next, agencies must prioritize the collected information and manage quality issues efficiently. This strategic prioritization ensures focus on the most critical risks that could impact mission success.
3. Implement Governance Finally, teams must implement strong governance and policy. This means managing not only the software assets being produced but also the entire processes and pipelines used to build them. As government teams adopt modern software factories utilizing containerization and Infrastructure as Code, securing these guardrails through robust Developer Security practices remains the central challenge.
