Security Considerations in the System Development Life Cycle

The purpose of this guideline is to assist agencies in building security into their IT development processes. This should result in more costeffective, risk-appropriate security control identification, development, and testing. This guide focuses on the information security components of the System Development Life Cycle (SDLC). Overall system implementation and development is considered outside the scope of this document. Also considered outside scope is an organization’s information system governance process. First, the guideline describes the key security roles and responsibilities that are needed in development of most information systems. Second, sufficient information about the SDLC is provided to allow a person who is unfamiliar with the SDLC process to understand the relationship between information security and the SDLC.