How do you incorporate security and privacy principles into your application architecture?

1 Define your security and privacy goals

Defining your security and privacy goals is the first step to incorporate these principles into your application architecture. This should be based on your business requirements, user expectations, legal obligations, and potential threats. Examples of security and privacy goals include protecting the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data and resources; ensuring the authentication, authorization, and accountability of users and actors; minimizing the exposure and impact of vulnerabilities and incidents; complying with relevant standards, regulations, and best practices; and enhancing user experience and satisfaction with the software system.

2 Choose an appropriate architecture style

The next step is to select an architecture style that meets your security and privacy goals, as well as your functional and non-functional requirements. An architecture style consists of design principles, patterns, and constraints that shape the structure, behavior, and interactions of your software system. Examples of architecture styles include monolithic, layered, microservices, event-driven, and serverless. Monolithic is a single-tiered system where all the components are tightly coupled and deployed as a single unit. Layered is a system where components are organized into logical layers. Microservices is a system where components are loosely coupled and deployed as independent services that communicate via well-defined interfaces. Event-driven is a system where components react to events generated by other components or external sources. Serverless is a system where components are executed on demand by a cloud provider that manages the underlying infrastructure and resources.

3 Apply security and privacy patterns

The third step is to apply security and privacy patterns that provide reusable solutions to common problems or challenges in your application architecture. A pattern is a well-thought-out design that outlines the problem, context, solution, and consequences of applying it. Examples of security and privacy patterns include encryption to prevent unauthorized access or modification, firewalls to filter network traffic, proxies as intermediaries to boost security, performance, or functionality, authentication for verifying identity before granting access, authorization for determining what a user can do or see in the system, and audit for recording actions and events for traceability and accountability.

4 Evaluate your architecture

The fourth step is to evaluate your architecture to ensure that it meets your security and privacy goals, as well as your functional and non-functional requirements. An evaluation is a systematic and objective assessment of your architecture which involves measuring, analyzing, and verifying its quality attributes such as security, privacy, performance, reliability, scalability, maintainability, and usability. When evaluating your architecture, you can use methods such as metrics to measure the degree of a quality attribute; scenarios to illustrate how your architecture responds to a quality attribute in a specific context; trade-offs to compare the advantages and disadvantages of different architectural alternatives or decisions; reviews for stakeholders to provide feedback and suggestions; and testing to validate and verify your architecture against predefined criteria or expectations.

5 Adapt your architecture

The final step is to adapt your architecture to changing security and privacy needs, or new functional and non-functional requirements. An adaptation is a deliberate and controlled modification to improve quality attributes, address issues or gaps, or respond to opportunities or threats. Adaptation triggers can include user feedback, market trends, regulatory changes, technology changes, and security incidents. For example, user input can indicate satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the system while market trends can influence competitive advantage or customer demand. Additionally, regulatory changes can affect the applicable standards and security incidents can compromise or threaten the security or privacy of the software system.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?