The Secure First Initiative (SFI) is a comprehensive approach to ensuring that security is embedded in every aspect of our solutions. This initiative is built on three core principles: Secure By Design, Secure By Default, and Secure in Operations. By integrating these principles, we aim to create robust, resilient, and secure applications that can withstand evolving cyber threats.
In today’s digital landscape, security is paramount. The Secure First Initiative (SFI) emphasizes a proactive approach to security, ensuring that every layer of our solutions is fortified against potential threats. This involves a culture of continuous improvement, robust governance, and adherence to best practices across all stages of development and operations. Lets look at the key principles.
Security is a fundamental aspect of our design process. We build security-first tests to ensure that our solutions are inherently secure from the outset. Looking specifically at the power platform through the lens of the Power Apps Test Engine this includes:
Our solutions come with security protections enabled and enforced by default. This means:
Continuous security validation and verification are crucial to maintaining a secure operational environment. This involves:
Generative AI with in are of Automated Testing plays a significant role in enhancing our security processes. It helps in:
Effective ALM processes are essential for maintaining security throughout the development lifecycle. This includes:
Culture is reinforced through daily behaviors. We have regular meetings between engineering executive vice presidents, SFI leaders, and all management levels ensure bottom-up, end-to-end problem-solving that ingrains security thinking into our everyday actions.
We’re elevating security governance with a new framework led by the chief information security officer. This will introduce a partnership with engineering teams to oversee SFI, manage risks, and report progress to leadership.
SFI empowers every employee at Microsoft to prioritize security, driven by a growth mindset of continuous improvement. We integrate feedback and learnings from incidents into our standards, enabling secure design and operations at scale.
Paved paths are best practices that optimize productivity, compliance, and security. These become standards when they enhance security or the developer experience. With SFI, we set and measure standards across all six prioritized security pillars.
Reduce the risk of unauthorized access by implementing and enforcing best-in-class standards across all identity and secrets infrastructure, plus user and application authentication and authorization.
Protect all Microsoft tenants and production environments using consistent, best-in-class security practices and strict isolation to minimize breadth of impact.
Protect Microsoft production networks and implement network isolation of Microsoft and customer resources.
Protect software assets and continuously improve code security through governance of the software supply chain and engineering systems infrastructure.
Provide comprehensive coverage and automatic detection of cyberthreats for Microsoft production infrastructure and services.
Prevent exploitation of vulnerabilities discovered by external and internal entities through comprehensive and timely remediation.
The Secure First Initiative is our commitment to delivering secure, resilient, and trustworthy solutions. By adhering to the principles of Secure By Design, Secure By Default, and Secure in Operations, we ensure that our applications are prepared to meet the highest security standards. Automated Testing can be one component of this overall strategy to protect your organization.