Security reviewers must develop the confidence and skills to make fast, difficult decisions. A simplistic piece of advice to reviewers is “just be confident” but in reality that takes practice and experience. Confidence comes with time, and people are there to support each other as we learn. This post shares advice we give to people doing security reviews for Chrome.
Security Review in Chrome
Chrome has a lightweight launch process. Teams write requirements and design documents outlining why the feature should be built, how the feature will benefit users, and how the feature will be built. Developers write code behind a feature flag and must pass a Launch Review before turning it on. Teams think about security early-on and coordinate with the security team. Teams are responsible for the safety of their features and ensuring that the security team is able to say ‘yes’ to its security review.
Security review focuses on the design of a proposed feature, not its details and is distinct from code review. Chrome changes need approval from engineers familiar with the code being changed but not necessarily from security experts. It is not practical for security engineers to scrutinize every change. Instead we focus on the feature’s architecture, and how it might affect people using Chrome.
Reviewers function best in an open and supportive engineering culture. Security review is not an easy task – it applies security engineering insights in a social context that could become adversarial and fractious. Google, and Chrome, embody a security-centric engineering culture, where respectful disagreement is valued, where we learn from mistakes, where decisions can be revisited, and where developers see the security team as a partner that helps them ship features safely. Within the security team we support each other by encouraging questioning & learning, and provide mentorship and coaching to help reviewers enhance their reviewing skills.
Learning security r
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This article has been indexed from Google Online Security Blog
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