How to Ensure Compliance During the Software Development Lifecycle

🔆ISO42001 and Reminders About Bias🔆 Most teams I work with still think of bias in AI as something they’ll catch in testing. Usually by the time it shows up, though, it’s already a compliance issue, or worse, a reputational one. The longer I’ve worked with AI systems and governance teams, the clearer it’s become: bias doesn’t live in a single model, or within a single system. It lives in your assumptions, scope decisions, unlabeled data, the silent corners of your ML pipeline, like cobwebs in the corners of your closet. And once it’s in the system, you need more than model performance metrics to get it out. 💡That’s one of the reasons I continue to find #ISO42001 to be such a useful structure/system. Your ISO42001 #AIMS won't treat fairness as an afterthought as much as it will expect you to treat it as a planning input, a risk, and a management system responsibility. You see it show up in the standard’s requirements for AI system impact assessments (6.1.4), risk treatment planning (6.1.3), and documented evidence of how these were handled. But to apply ISO42001 well, you need to pair it with two other tools: 🔹#ISO23053 gives you the system view of machine learning. It walks through how models are trained, retrained, and monitored, especially where evaluation metrics can start to break down for real users. 🔹#ISO24027 is the most grounded source I’ve seen on bias. It doesn’t just define it, it maps out where it creeps in, how to measure it across groups, and what kind of lifecycle/systems thinking helps you contain it. Despite their names, these aren’t just technical references. They help bridge a real gap I’ve seen in the field, a divide between the teams who build AI and the teams who are accountable for its impact. If you’re implementing ISO42001, here’s the short list of what I’ve learned: 🔸Build fairness metrics into your risk criteria, not just your model evaluation. 🔸Make sure your AI objectives (Clause 6.2) account for stakeholder expectations on fairness, not just accuracy. 🔸Use Annex A controls like A.5.4 (individual impact) and A.6.1.2 (development objectives) to hold your teams accountable for real outcomes. 🔸Be explicit about what levels of bias you’ll accept, what tradeoffs are in play, and how they’ll be reviewed over time. Ultimately your goal should be to put in place a structure where you can be clear about how you know your systems are working, for everyone they affect. A-LIGN #TheBusinessofCompliance #ComplianceAlignedtoYou

Just ship it! Test in production.... It'll be ok! Shipping secure software at high velocity is a challenge that many smaller, fast-paced, tech-forward companies face. When you're building and deploying your own software in-house, every day counts, and often, the time between development and release can feel like it's shrinking. In my experience working in these environments, balancing speed and security requires a more dynamic approach that often ends up with things happening in parallel. One key area where I've seen significant success is through the use of automated security testing within the Continuous Integration and Continuous Development (CICD) pipelines. Essentially, this means that every time developers push new code, security checks are built right into the process, running automatically. This gives a baseline level of confidence that the code is free from known issues before it even reaches production. Automated tools can scan for common vulnerabilities, ensuring that security testing isn’t an afterthought but an integral part of the development lifecycle. This approach can identify and resolve potential problems early on, while still moving quickly. Another great tool in the arsenal is the Software Bill of Materials (SBOM). Think of it like an ingredient list for the software. In fast-paced environments, it's common to reuse code, pull in external libraries, or leverage open-source solutions to speed up development. While this helps accelerate delivery, it can also introduces risks. The SBOM helps track all the components that go into software, so teams know exactly what they’re working with. If a vulnerability is discovered in an external library, teams can quickly identify whether they’re using that component and take action before it becomes a problem. Finally, access control and code integrity monitoring play a vital role in ensuring that code is not just shipping fast, but shipping securely. Not every developer should have access to every piece of code, and this isn’t just about preventing malicious behavior—it's about protecting the integrity of the system. Segregation of duties between teams allows us to set appropriate guardrails, limiting access where necessary and ensuring that changes are reviewed by the right people before being merged. Having checks and balances in place keeps the code clean and reduces the risk of unauthorized changes making their way into production. What I’ve learned over the years is that shipping secure software at high speed requires security to be baked into the process, not bolted on at the end (says every security person ever). With automated testing, clear visibility into what goes into your software, and a structured approach to access control, you can maintain the velocity of your team while still keeping security front and center. #founders #startup #devops #cicd #sbom #iam #cybersecurity #security #ciso

Shift left is NOT dead! It’s just become misunderstood for some reason. Let’s clear it up: Shift left in cybersecurity simply means adding security habits earlier in the software development lifecycle (SDLC). It means implementing proactive security habits closer to design and coding, rather than ONLY reacting once software is already in production. But here’s the key: To shift left effectively, you should first "start right". Start Right: Build visibility, monitoring, and resilience in production - Monitor for real-world threats and attacks - Respond to and fix actual exploitable production vulnerabilities (found via pentests and bug bounty findings) - Track the cost and impact of security incidents Then, use root cause analysis to connect these incidents to upstream opportunities for prevention, so you can make the case for... Shift Left: Move prevention and awareness earlier in the lifecycle - Conduct architecture reviews and regular threat modeling - Define security requirements and apply secure coding practices - Deliver secure code training - Implement pre-production scanning (SAST, SCA, etc.) Once both the right-side and left-side controls are in place, you have successfully shifted "everywhere" - the ultimate goal! But let’s be clear: “Shift everywhere” does NOT mean pushing the security responsibilities onto the developers. It means building effective security controls into the SDLC itself, with well defined shared responsibilities across: - Developers - Security - Product and Project Managers - Engineering leaders …and anyone else involved in shipping software This all will require CHANGE to your organization's habits and culture, which takes time, and a whole lot of patience. You’ll need allies. You’ll need security champions. Your security team can’t do this alone. Start right → Shift left → Shift everywhere! #applicationsecurity #productsecurity #softwaresecurity #securitychampions #securityculture #proactivesecurity #devsecops #developerexperience #shiftleft #shifteverywhere #sdlc