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  • 5 Unusual Ways to Improve Code Quality

    5 Unusual Ways to Improve Code Quality

    Code quality refers to how well-written and maintainable software code is. It encompasses factors such as readability, efficiency, scalability, reliability, maintainability and security. High code quality ensures that software is easy to understand, modify and extend, has fewer bugs and is less likely to break down. It also reduces development time and costs and improves the overall user experience. One common approach to determine code quality is to use automated tools that analyze the code based on predefined quality standards and generate a report with a numerical score.

    Why is Code Quality Important?

    Generating high-quality code ultimately enhances the end user’s experience. Focusing on creating quality code can also help consumers understand the safety and reliability of the software or program they’re using.

    Low-quality code can affect user experience and satisfaction, making it critical to write high-quality code that functions properly. When developers write low-quality code, it can create vulnerabilities that expose the software to cybersecurity threats, resulting in bugs and functionality issues and impacting the software’s reliability. 

    Here are some additional reasons high-quality code is important: 

    • Enhances code readability: Readability is important because it leads to higher rates of understanding among other developers. A code that’s easy to read is also easy to improve.
    • Improves the level of program sustainability: Program sustainability measures how long a code can survive with minimal changes. High-quality code can last for years, making it more sustainable.
    • Increases transferability: Transferring code from one platform to another is a complicated process. It’s much easier for developers to transfer high-quality code, as they only need to make minimal changes.
    • Lowers costs related to program or software: When software lasts for a long time with few errors, it can save a company money. Instead of paying for additional time to rewrite low-quality code, the company can rely on the original, high-quality source code.

    5 Unusual Ways to Improve Code Quality

    Here are a few ways you may not have thought of which can help your development team improve code quality and end-user satisfaction.

    Bug Bounty

    A bug bounty program is a type of crowdsourced security testing in which an organization offers rewards to independent security researchers or ethical hackers for identifying and reporting vulnerabilities in their software or systems. By offering rewards for vulnerabilities, organizations can incentivize security researchers to find and report security issues before they can be exploited by attackers.

    Bug bounty programs can improve code quality in several ways:

    • Incentivize security testing: Bug bounty programs incentivize security researchers to test an organization’s software or systems for vulnerabilities. This can increase the amount and quality of security testing that is done, leading to a more secure product.
    • Encourage responsible disclosure: Bug bounty programs encourage security researchers to report vulnerabilities directly to the organization rather than publishing them publicly or selling them on the black market. This allows organizations to fix vulnerabilities before they are exploited by attackers.
    • Provide feedback on code quality: Security researchers who participate in bug bounty programs can provide feedback on code quality which can help organizations to improve their development practices and write more secure code in the future.

    Auto-Generated Documentation

    Auto-generated documentation is a type of documentation that is generated from code comments and metadata as part of an automated development pipeline. It is typically generated using tools such as Javadoc, Doxygen, or Sphinx, which parse code comments and metadata to generate HTML, PDF, or other formats of documentation.

    Auto-generated documentation can improve code quality in several ways:

    • Improved code readability: Auto-generated documentation can provide clear and concise descriptions of code functionality, making it easier for developers to understand the code and its purpose.
    • Better code organization: Auto-generated documentation can help developers organize their code by providing a clear hierarchy of classes, methods, and functions, making it easier to navigate and maintain the codebase.
    • Consistency: Auto-generated documentation can ensure that documentation is consistent across the codebase, reducing the risk of errors and misunderstandings.
    • Quality assurance: Auto-generated documentation can be used as a quality assurance tool, helping developers to identify errors and omissions in their code comments and metadata.

    Coding Conventions

    Coding conventions are a set of guidelines and standards that outline how code should be written and formatted to promote consistency and readability. They typically cover aspects such as naming conventions, code structure, formatting, and documentation. 

    By following coding conventions, developers can improve code quality and make their code easier to read and understand, which makes it easier to maintain and modify. They also help ensure that code is consistent across a project or organization, which can make collaboration and integration of different code segments easier.

    Typical elements that coding conventions dictate include:

    • Naming conventions for variables, functions, and classes.
    • Indentation and formatting of code blocks.
    • Use of whitespace and comments to improve readability.
    • Guidelines for handling exceptions, errors, and input/output.

    Quality Gates

    Quality gates are a set of checkpoints or criteria that software must meet before it can progress to the next stage of development. They are typically used in software development processes to ensure that the software is of a certain quality and is ready for release.

    Quality gates can be automated or manual, and they are typically implemented at key points in the development process, such as after unit testing, integration testing, or acceptance testing. They can include metrics such as code coverage, code quality, functionality, performance and security.

    By enforcing quality gates, development teams can catch and address issues earlier in the development process, which can reduce rework, save time and ensure that the final software product meets the required quality standards.

    Smart Code Snippets

    Smart code snippets, also known as intelligent code snippets or live templates, are pre-written code fragments that can be inserted into a code file with placeholders for variables or user-defined inputs. They are designed to help developers write code more efficiently and accurately by reducing the amount of repetitive or boilerplate code they need to write and by providing contextual awareness and intelligence.

    Regular code snippets are static pieces of code that can be inserted into a file as needed. They typically contain pre-written code blocks or templates that can be customized to fit the specific use case.

    In contrast, smart code snippets are dynamic and can adapt to the context of the code being written. For example, a smart code snippet might include placeholders for variables that need to be defined or automatically fill in common code constructs based on the context of the code. 

    Conclusion

    The five lesser-known ways to improve code quality discussed in this article offer a starting point for teams looking to take a fresh perspective on their development process. Improving code quality is critical for the success of any software development project. While there are many established methods and best practices for improving code quality, there are also some less conventional approaches that can be surprisingly effective. By adopting a creative and open-minded approach to software development, teams can identify new ways to improve code quality and build more reliable, efficient and secure software.

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  • Bug Bounty Vs. Crowdtesting Programs

    Bug Bounty Vs. Crowdtesting Programs

    Digital quality and excellent user experiences are more important today than ever. When a digital experience doesn’t work as expected or is rife with friction points or glitches, customers are quick to give up and move on to a better, easier solution. Bugs and defects often come with high stakes and can result in loss of revenue, dissatisfied customers and potential damage to a brand’s reputation.

    With this in mind, software testing is tasked with the important role of catching and fixing bugs and defects before they hit production. There are several approaches to finding bugs in software, two of which are bug bounty programs and crowdtesting. In this article, we’ll examine the values of each.

    Bug Bounty Programs

    A bug bounty program typically involves people outside an organization with software testing experience, leveraging their expertise to hunt down product defects in exchange for money. Bug bounty programs can be a cost-effective way to find defects that otherwise go unnoticed. They provide an outside perspective and a sanity check for digital products to find vulnerabilities and defects.

    From a security perspective, bug bounty programs are also valuable. Today’s security teams have trouble managing the sheer volume of software vulnerabilities found in software. That’s part of the reason behind the growing number of cyberattacks and breaches that continue to be a topic of discussion. Bug bounty programs leverage white-hat hackers to find and report vulnerabilities in an effort to improve overall security posture and support the organization’s own cybersecurity team.

    Bug Bounty Benefits

    Bug bounty programs offer a variety of benefits to organizations, including:

    ● Helping with blind spots: It doesn’t matter how well your software is designed and coded. Defects and bugs, whether minor or major, will find their way into applications. The developers themselves and internal testing teams may only test certain paths based on organizational norms. Bug bounty testers offer a fresh perspective that can help reduce overall blind spots in application testing.
    ● Resource flexibility: Most organizations don’t have the flexibility to scale internal resources on short notice. Bug bounty programs offer outsourced help and are flexible. They can be scaled up if needed to help with finding defects before a major launch. Or, if a business needs to save money, it can be scaled down by either reducing payouts or limiting testers to high-value defects.
    ● Continuous evaluation: Whether an application is in use by customers or is just a prototype, a bug bounty program can go to work finding and revealing bugs and vulnerabilities. Bug bounty programs can continuously search for bugs that help improve the quality of an application.

    Bug Bounty Challenges

    While there are some great benefits to using bug bounty programs, there are challenges, as well, including:

    ● Money focus: As the name suggests, this is a bounty program. High-severity defects come with a higher payout. If a large percentage of bug bounty hunters are focused on high-severity bugs and vulnerabilities because of the higher earning potential, they may miss the smaller defects. This can add up and result in a less-than-ideal user experience, with smaller issues going unfixed.
    ● The perspective of the tester: No matter how experienced and skilled a tester is, everyone is limited by their own blind spots and perspective. A diverse group of testers can help offset this, but there is still no guarantee that they will test the product in the same way that customers will use them. This challenge is multiplied when we add in different devices, operating systems, languages, and locations. Bug bounty hunters may be more focused on finding high-value issues to earn more, while an internal tester may be more invested in a specific product or feature and making sure it works as it should.
    ● Communication: Many have gotten used to working from home or from anywhere and collaborating remotely. Bug hunters work like this too, but they are outsourced assistance from an organization, which requires a bit of extra thought for communication, project scope and qualifications to make sure misunderstandings or lags in progress are kept to a minimum.

    Crowdtesting

    A crowdtesting model leverages skilled testers and testing teams that can be sourced from a globally dispersed community of independent digital experts. Depending on the size and diversity of the community, testers can apply a nearly limitless variety of demographic characteristics, locations, skill levels, spoken languages, abilities, devices, browsers and operating systems into a testing scenario. This breadth of feedback provides valuable insights into how real users will interact with an app, device or digital experience—which may not necessarily be the “typical” way it is intended to be used. This real-world interaction can unearth bugs, friction points and localization issues that may otherwise go unnoticed before the experience is released to actual customers.

    The remote and on-demand nature of crowdtesting provides scalability and timely results in comparison to more traditional testing methods, like offshoring or lab-based testing, which are typically more limited in scope and flexibility. Plus, the crowdtesting model inherently provides the ability to scale testing services up or down as needed to meet the project-based requirements of a company’s internal teams.

    Crowdtesting Vs. Bug Bounty Programs

    Both bug bounty and crowdtesting programs involve digital experts looking for app defects and vulnerabilities with the goal of improving digital quality. These programs can be aligned in this goal and even work in tandem, but there are some notable differences between them worth mentioning.

    ● Scope: Bug bounty program scopes will always be somewhat limited. Defects can be found outside of the payment scope and go unflagged. Crowdtesting allows for either a broader or more specific scope, depending on needs. Organizations can give specific instructions, like making sure UX considerations are taken into account.
    ● Volume: Both crowdtesting and bug bounties rely on skilled professionals who know how to root out bugs and defects. Crowdtesting, however, allows for as many or as few testers as needed. Instead of gathering a moderate amount of defects from a more technical audience, crowdtesting enables testing for any amount of defects from a diverse and vast pool of testers. As a result, crowdtesting finds a larger variety of defects, and across more devices, locations, and OS versions. This can also be a challenge, as internal staff can become overwhelmed by so many bug reports to look through and address. Therefore, prioritization is key.
    ● Flexibility: Digital quality is a multi-faceted process. It’s not just about functional and security bugs but also accessibility assessment, making sure to test using specific devices and use cases, and more. Bug bounties fall short here, while crowdtesting delivers the flexibility to test and address situations your potential customers may face when an application is live.
    ● Specificity: Most bug bounty programs are not tailored. They can be application- or region-specific, but that doesn’t always reflect a target customer use case. Crowdtesting enables an organization to focus on specific demographics in terms of user experience. An organization can specify testers in certain locations with a certain device or devices and who speak specific languages. Crowdtesting isn’t always just about technical ability; it’s about finding the correct group of people needed for the task at hand.

    Both bug bounty and crowdtesting programs provide unique benefits that help organizations improve overall digital quality. Bug bounty programs offer help with organizational blind spots while leveraging testing professionals in a flexible way. Crowdtesting enables businesses to harness the power of real people using actual devices out in the world to test for use cases. It delivers the power to augment internal testing initiatives, helping to improve overall quality, usability, accessibility and more. When improving digital quality and user experience are the goal and end result, bug bounty and crowdtesting programs can each be impactful and helpful for today’s businesses and for improving the user experience.

  • Benefits and Challenges of Bug Bounty Programs

    Benefits and Challenges of Bug Bounty Programs

    Trying to get ahead of the bugs and vulnerabilities that cause security breaches and hacks has become an increasingly high priority in recent years across a variety of industries. With a growing cybersecurity skills gap and short-staffed security teams, many organizations are turning to bug bounty programs to expand their breach prevention capabilities beyond their internal teams. 

    How Do Bug Bounty Programs Work? 

    These programs represent reward-driven crowdsourced security testing where ethical hackers that are able to successfully discover (and report) vulnerabilities to companies are rewarded by the organization that was hacked.

    Further classification of bug bounty programs can be split into private and public programs. Public programs allow entire communities of ethical hackers to participate in the program. Usually, these wide-ranging programs can be either time-limited and open-ended. On the other hand, private programs are generally limited to a smaller, hand-selected sub-group of hackers that are scoped to specific targets. These private programs often take place through commercial bounty platforms, where hackers are selected based on their reputation, experience and skills.

    One company that exemplifies the growing bug bounty trend is Microsoft. It has consistently been involved in these types of efforts over the years, and the latest example is its new Xbox Bounty Program. It followed RockstarGames’ decision to make its bug bounty program public, inviting hackers to test its platform for a wider range of vulnerabilities. So what does a successful program look like?

    The Xbox Bounty Program

    The Xbox Bounty Program, for instance, invites gamers, security researchers and others from around the world to help identify vulnerabilities in the Xbox Live network and services, and share them with the Xbox team. Qualified submissions are eligible for bounty rewards of $500 to $20,000. If you find a major bug in an Xbox Live service and report it to them, you could get paid for it.

    The following are examples of vulnerabilities that may lead to one or more of the security impacts Xbox is looking to address: 

    • Cross site scripting (XSS).
    • Cross site request forgery (CSRF).
    • Insecure direct object references.
    • Insecure deserialization.
    • Injection vulnerabilities.
    • Server-side code execution.
    • Significant security misconfiguration (when not caused by user).
    • Demonstrable exploits in third party components.

    Bug Bounty Benefits

    Traditional penetration testing services sometimes generate a culture of fear due to meeting compliance requirements, but bug bounties are different. Bug bounties are about creating a culture of openness, transparency and responsibility.

    People are consistently looking to hack every game console on the market and many applications/websites as well, whether it’s for good or for bad. For organizations like Microsoft, it’s important to bring the dark side over to the light by making hackers ethical with their participation in the bounty programs.

    Ethical hackers help businesses detect vulnerabilities before the bad guys beat them to it. In other words, running a bug bounty program is getting ahead of the game by being proactive and predictive. A bug bounty is an alternative way to detect software and configuration errors that can slip past developers and security teams, and later lead to big problems.

    Bug bounty programs and responsible disclosure programs are extremely beneficial for Microsoft, and organizations in general, because they give curious people a legal and positive way to express their curiosity.

    In a previous life, I was a white hat hacker like this. I never reported anything I found, but if there had been a system in place like a bug bounty, I would’ve taken full advantage. Having these programs in general is great for organizations to find bugs, but it’s also important for them to ensure they are reported. 

    Bug Bounty Challenges

    While bug bounties have numerous benefits as outlined above, it’s also important not to over rely on bug bounty programs. Since these programs are incremental, they don’t eliminate the necessity of securing software development system scans or testing.

    Before diving into the program, it’s also important to define the scope of the bounty program. You must have unquestionable clarity about the authorized conduct framework, and you must decide what proof you’ll require to confirm a hack and how and when people should share that information.

    Bounty program legal rules can sometimes be written poorly as well, allowing hackers to stray outside of the boundaries–despite the potential legal risk. A lot of bug bounty reporters are just shoving their world’s view onto the organization holding the bounty programs. It’s nowhere near the majority, but you see it a lot with younger people.

    It will take advanced planning and agreement with security teams, operations and developers to ensure the procedures are in place to tackle such incidents when they arise. But all in all, the benefits of bug bounty programs significantly outweigh the challenges they pose. Every day around the world there are new breaches grabbing news headlines. Bug bounties are one of the ways to help keep organizations out of those headlines, and continue on the path to a safer digital life.

    — Bryan Becker

  • Scrutiny of the Bug Bounty

    Scrutiny of the Bug Bounty

    Tips on building an internal bug bounty program

    As a programmer, have you ever felt pressured to ship a release with lots of new features, while you knew that there was still a technical debt stability improvements and bug fixes that you wanted to address but didn’t have the time or scope to address? This happens all the time, along with the worry that a bug could cause problems for users leading to churn, revenue and reputation costs. Even the best software faces this challenge, balancing road map velocity with software stability, with each release. These imperfections can delay new software and feature releases at a time in which speed has become a powerful competitive advantage.

    Developers and their organizations are challenged to bring products to market faster without impacting their stability and reliability. To be successful in this regard, organizations need a culture and resources to detect instability at multiple inspection points.

    Enter the Bug Bounty

    Of course, development teams are responsible for the quality and stability of the products they build. But those products often act differently in distinct environments. This problem isn’t new. Developers have always faced unknown issues prior to a release. However, dealing with such problems can be improved by considering the cultural solutions and tools used to reduce the bugs and increase stability.

    Many organizations are creating internal bug bounty programs to promote security and application stability by reducing software bugs. These organizations promote a proactive culture of ownership and empowerment through internal programs that allow a variety of employees to assume the role of bug hunters. If the proper tools are available, bug detection responsibilities can be shared by development teams, operations and executive management.

    Bug bounty programs enable teams to harness problem-solving skills to reduce bugs in application and software releases. Detection tools enable multiple teams to track and prioritize bugs that have the greatest business. This involves multiple teams and viewpoints in tracking and fixing bugs to prompt a variety of strong ideas and solutions.

    A companywide bug bounty program can also promote awareness by involving participants outside the development process in a fun and challenging way. It creates an opportunity for people throughout the organization to improve product quality. It’s a good way to promote application stability awareness while encouraging employees to explore applications and software development.

    Internal teams of engineers and developers are inherently well-suited for these types of projects because they know the infrastructure better than anyone, including its strengths and the weaknesses. By codifying the internal search for bugs, organizations can learn from mistakes and strengthen products while building intellectual capital. An internal program has the added benefit of identifying vulnerabilities before customers or users experience them.

    How to Begin

    To launch a successful program, consider the nature of the program along with the process and workflow for prioritizing where to allocate team resources. Specifically, an organization must define the business objectives that determine the kind of program you want to run, what the rewards will be and the scope of what will be tested. And with that information, determine the culture and tools that make it all possible.

    It’s important to keep in mind that the two pieces (culture and tools) are not exclusive and don’t have to come in a certain order. You can use the right tools to build the culture, or you can create the right culture and right tools help codify and amplify that culture.

    Considerations for a Successful Internal Bug Bounty Program

    Business Objectives

    What are the business goals and objectives that determine how the program is administered and what solutions will be used to achieve your desired outcomes?

    Rewards

    To attract the talent and attention needed to run a successful program, setting the rewards in line with your business objectives is an important step.

    Scope

    Detailing the scope of the program is essential to specify what the program intends to investigate, where to explore and what measures are allowed.

    The more detail that can be supplied the better.

    What Participants Need to Know

    Internal teams need to know what they are signing up for when they choose to participate in the program and how anything they uncover will be utilized. Be clear for all involved, both the organization and the program participants.

    It is crucial to point participants in the right direction and establish boundaries around where activities are expected and allowed and where they will be most beneficial. One tactic may be to keep a running list or dialogue detailing important targets. These targets will likely be a mix of web, mobile, IoT and API and can be prioritized in running lists.

    Once acceptable targets are established, the best way to achieve a lasting impact is to have the tools in place that allow teams to build better software. Through culture and tools, it’s important for teams to be empowered to capture errors and diagnostic data in any app, prioritize the errors that have the greatest business impact, reproduce and offer fixes for the errors, all in clear metrics that multiple teams can understand and put to use.

    Finally, ground rules are needed. This step will vary among organizations based on objectives and scope. But programs should detail how tests can be carried out, who specifically is authorized conduct them and how adjustments will be communicated as the program evolves.

    Businesses may find many reasons for implementing an internal bug bounty program ranging from security to quality and even professional development. Whatever the reason, take the time to define the program clearly to keep it within the scope of your goals and pay close attention to the culture you promote and the tools that are implemented to be sure the program can achieve maximum results.

    — Chuck Dubuque

  • Cobalt Merges Bug Bounties, Continuous Testing for Better Security

    Cobalt Merges Bug Bounties, Continuous Testing for Better Security

    The rapid pace of application development today can be hard to keep up with, especially when it comes to security. Combining the benefits of continuous testing with the incentives of a crowdsourced bug bounty program seems like a potentially effective way to address that volatility effectively.

    Companies need to keep up with demand while staying one step ahead of the competition. It’s very easy in such a dynamic environment for security to fall through the cracks, or be ignored entirely. Combining DevOps-style automation with crowdsourced intelligence is a good approach.

    Bug bounty programs have matured and gained mainstream acceptance in recent years, thanks in large part to the leading champion of bug bounty programs, Katie Moussouris. After launching Microsoft’s successful bug bounty program, she left to join Hacker One as Chief Policy Officer. She recently ventured out on her own as a bug bounty evangelist and consultant under the banner of Luta Security.

    The concept is simple: Rather than pretending vulnerabilities don’t exist, or sitting around waiting for the bad guys to exploit the vulnerabilities first, a bug bounty program provides financial incentives for hackers and/or security researchers to identify and report flaws. The net result is a win-win-win that results in more secure applications, happier customers and satisfied security researchers who feel appreciated—and paid—for the work they do.

    That is where Cobalt comes in. “I’m impressed by how Cobalt has built its model by taking the best elements from the bug bounty space, which offers rewards to those in the security community who can identify software vulnerabilities, and combining them with a scalable, continuous penetration testing platform,” said Robert Fly, an investor and advisor with more than 15 years of application security experience from Microsoft and most recently Salesforce, where he built the product security team and was VP of Security Engineering.

    “Companies building web and mobile applications need the flexibility to quickly develop new applications that delight their customers, while ensuring that their applications are secure,” said Jacob Hansen, CEO of Cobalt. “Instead of needing to invest in security tools, such as scanners and penetration tools that are expensive and vary in quality, and having to hire security staff or consultants, our customers rely on Cobalt to provide transparent continuous application testing services, leveraging a powerful platform along with a global community of security researchers.”

    There are a variety of well-known software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies already using Cobalt, including GoDaddy, Wix, Weebly, Nexmo and Optimizely.

    At face value, this seems like an awesome strategy. Only time will tell how it really plays out, but the success of bug bounty programs when it comes to finding and fixing vulnerabilities in general is indisputable, and continuous testing is a staple of DevOps environments. Combining the two should raise the bar for application security in general.