What exactly is Technical Debt?

Technological debt is the price organisations pay for making technical decisions that, while convenient today, may slow down or raise operating expenses and dangers over time.

Although it is frequently associated with technological products, it is present in the majority of business procedures and use cases.

More specifically, cyber security technical debt refers to the accumulated cost and consequences of quick-fix security solutions to expedite development or deployment in security measures.

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Various Forms of Technical Debt

Martin Fowler’s Technical Debt Quadrant is the most popular way of categorising tech debt today.

Prudent and Deliberate:

Take on technical debt intentionally with a plan for how to deal with it in the future.

Context for Cyber Security

Hardcoded Credentials:

Developers can embed credentials into source code to save time during the development and testing phases, with the intention to update these credentials later.

This can create a vulnerability in the code if it is not properly secured or removed.

Delayed Patching:

Updates and security patches are vital for strengthening defences and addressing emerging threats. In a hurry to meet deadlines or release products, developers can delay applying patches.

This leaves systems vulnerable to known exploits.

Minimal Authentication and Authorization:

It can take a long time to implement robust authentication and authorisation mechanisms.

Developers may choose simple authentication methods to speed up the development process, such as default or shared passwords, or they might rely solely on one-factor authentication.

Lack of Logging and Monitoring:

For detecting and responding effectively to security incidents, comprehensive logging and monitoring is essential.

Due to time constraints, developers can deprioritize the implementation of logging and monitor functionality, which results in a reduced visibility into potential security breaches and system activity.

Minimal Security Testing:

Security vulnerabilities can only be identified and mitigated by thorough security testing. This includes penetration testing and vulnerability assessment.

Under tight deadlines, however, organisations can prioritize functional testing above security testing.

This may lead to software being released with vulnerabilities that have not been addressed.

Prudent and Inadvertent:

Technical debt that is unintentionally accrued due to a lack of knowledge or awareness, but with the willingness to deal with it.

Context for Cyber Security

Lack of Architectural Planning:

If systems are constructed in a piecemeal manner without a coherent architectural plan, this can lead to poor integration, interdependencies that are complex, and difficulties maintaining security throughout the entire infrastructure. It increases the attack surface, and it is difficult to update security configurations consistently.

Technical Debt from Mergers and Acquisitions:

When companies acquire other businesses, they inherit technologies and legacy systems that weren’t designed with security as a priority.

Integration of these disparate systems may introduce new vulnerabilities, if technical debt isn’t addressed.

Legacy Systems and Software:

Some organisations may use outdated software and hardware that are no longer supported. These legacy systems become more vulnerable to cyber-attacks as new vulnerabilities are found. However, organisations may not upgrade them due to cost or complexity.

Lack of Documentation and Knowledge Transfer:

It is possible that internal knowledge of the system’s architecture and dependencies as well as security controls, may not have been properly documented or passed on to the new team when developers leave the organisation or project. Ultimately, making it can be difficult to maintain the system and keep it secure over time.

Reckless and Inadvertent

Technical debt that is unintentionally accrued due to a failure to understand best practices and their consequences without any plan to resolve it.

Of course, the cause of these situations is beyond organisations control but it is important to know how they will handle these situations.

Context for Cyber Security

Outdated Security Protocols:

Organisations can become ineffective and outdated as cyber security best practices change.

As an example, many organisations were forced to upgrade their infrastructure due to the switch from SHA-1 hashing algorithm to SHA256 and similar from TLSv1.0 to TLSv2.0

Regulatory Changes:

To maintain compliance, organisations may be forced to make unplanned modifications to their systems or processes to comply with new or updated regulations.

Zero-Day Vulnerabilities:

Zero-day vulnerabilities can force organisations into developing and deploying patches quickly, resulting in resources being diverted from planned initiatives.

Reckless and Deliberate:

Intentionally taking technical debt on without thinking about the long-term consequences or having a strategy to deal with it.

Context for Cyber Security

Outdated Libraries and Frameworks:

Over time, development teams can rely on outdated third-party components, frameworks, or open-source libraries.

These dependencies can become outdated over time, introducing security vulnerabilities. This is especially true if the original maintainers of the project have abandoned it.

Lack Of Architectural Oversight:

Without strong architectural governance, development teams can make short-term choices that lead to technical debt and, over time, a fragmented, insecure architecture.

It can lead to security vulnerabilities such as single points-of-failure, insufficient access controls and inadequate data protection mechanisms.

Organizational Silos:

Technical debt can build up when different teams or departments are managing various components of a systems in isolation. This is due to the lack of coordination and a holistic understanding.

This can result in inconsistent security practices, vulnerabilities that are not patched, and difficulties implementing comprehensive measures of security across the system.

Proliferation Of Shadow IT:

In large organisations, employees may deploy unauthorized software or services to fulfill their tasks, often bypassing IT security protocols. Without proper oversight, these shadow IT solutions can introduce security vulnerabilities, such as unpatched software or weak access controls, which may go unnoticed until a breach occurs.

Employees in large organisations may use unauthorized software and services to complete their tasks, bypassing IT security protocols.

These shadow IT solutions, without proper oversight, can introduce security flaws, such as unpatched or weak access control software, that may not be noticed until a breach has occurred.

Dependency Sprawl:

As a system expands, it will depend on an ever-increasing number of third-party dependencies such as frameworks, libraries, and APIs.

These dependencies, if not managed properly, can pose security risks.

Fragmented Security Policies:

Security policies can become fragmented in complex environments where there are multiple stakeholders.

This can create gaps in coverage of security requirements or conflicting configurations.

What Are the Main Causes of Technical Debt?

Poor Management

Weak leadership is one of the main reasons why technical debt accumulates. It is ultimately the responsibility of the development teams, even though it may affect several departments.

The team must be ready to instill a technology vision throughout the organisation and to adopt a mindset that prioritizes quality, performance, scalability and maintainability.

All of the needs above are non-functional criteria which need to be incorporated naturally into the process of designing features. It is about showing the group which issues should be prioritized and that they take time to deliberate over.

The leadership is responsible for the unknown requirements, in that they decide how to deal with them. Leadership must at some point realise that “we have to clean up and conduct a refactor. We need some time to work out how to get it right this time.”

In the same way, any requests for changes at the last minute must also be handled. To be able to provide a safety net for the team, it is important that they are free from external demands.

Cultural Concerns

Another major cause of technical debt is the lack of a proper mindset in the entire organisation or at least the development and product departments.

One obvious cultural problem is the lack of a system whereby problems can be resolved in a cooperative manner within a monitoring framework that holds people accountable, but without demeaning them.

Another is a culture which discourages testing. This makes systemic change unpopular. This anxiety spreads throughout the company, causing everyone to be reluctant to make any changes.

Additionally, collaboration and documentation are lacking.

Time Restrictions

The last, but most important factor is time limits. They are more appropriate in certain situations than others. An organization working on an MVP may want to launch the product as soon as possible to get a proof-of-concept and refine it.

Poor communication or a lack in knowledge transfer between tech and business can also lead to inaccurate time estimates. It is best to assume that estimates are wrong and allow extra time to buffer.

In this context, managing client expectations plays a role. Business teams are eager to reach consensus with clients and buyers, which at the time may or may require input from a member of the technical team. If the team is accustomed to checking with engineers prior to closing out transactions with clients, disappointing clients can be avoided by setting unreasonable expectations.

The Impact of Technical Debt

Technical debt impacts engineering resources as well as other parts of the organisation’s ecosystem. This can have a wide-ranging impact on the code base, product, development teams and the business.

The problem is exacerbated by increasing complexity and poor code quality, which causes technical debt to increase faster. This causes bugs, delays, downtime, and functionality issues.

Additionally, it slows down development, lowers morale and causes retention problems for talent.

Direct increases in cost and indirect revenue reductions are detrimental to the financial health of a company.

Unchecked technology debt can threaten the survival of a business in worst-case scenarios.

Managing Technical Debt

Recognize that it is typical. It’s better to accept that this is just one component of the building materials than to try to avoid it.

It’s neither strange nor wrong to have technical debt, as long as there is not an enormous amount and have a plan to strategically manage it.

Organisations should also acknowledge that accidental and/or unintentional tech is inevitable.

Set goals and maintain tabs on progress.

To manage your debt effectively, you need to keep a close eye on it. This means setting flexible deadlines to determine when and what needs to be caught-up on. It also takes some forethought to realise that developers will need time to fix any problematic code, or to update the code to reflect new technology or feature requirements.

It is important to develop a flexible and collaborative plan at the beginning of the process, which will entail tracking key technical debt metrics.

Maintain Clear and Helpful Communication.

It’s easy to say that you are “working through technical debt,” but this is not an accurate description of the team’s work. The word “debt”, which has a negative association, will not make sense to stakeholders who aren’t as technical.

As such, explain what the team is working on, the fixes they are making, and how it will improve the end product and bring business value.

Summary

Technical debt is the consequence of expedient technical decisions that may lead to increased costs and risks over time.
It exists in various aspects of business operations, including cyber security.
Examples of technical debt in cyber security include hardcoded credentials, delayed patching, minimal authentication and authorization, lack of logging and monitoring, and minimal security testing.
Martin Fowler’s Technical Debt Quadrant categorizes tech debt into four types: prudent and deliberate, prudent and inadvertent, reckless and inadvertent, and reckless and deliberate.
Poor management, cultural concerns, and time restrictions are the main causes of technical debt.
Tech debt impacts engineering resources, code quality, development speed, morale, and business financial health.
Managing technical debt involves recognizing its inevitability, setting goals, monitoring progress, and maintaining clear communication.

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