As enhancements are implemented, it’s necessary to check and verify whether the established access control policies, especially, those for critical processes and resources, are still strictly enforced. This is to confirm that no undue authorisation has been granted during the process that may introduce new loopholes or cause undesirable privilege escalation to increase the attack surface to critical processes and resources. Specifically, when a component is eliminated in any execution path for performance optimisation, it’s always good to verify that the access control implemented in the component will be covered or enforced by downstream components.

To improve system performance while ensuring security, a balanced approach is needed. Strategies include Threat Modeling and Risk Assessment, Secure Optimization Techniques, Security Testing, Secure Development Practices, Enforced Authentication and Access Controls, Deploy Runtime Protection, Encrypted Data in Transit and at Rest, Monitoring and Log Performance-Security Metrics, Regular Penetration Testing, Educating Development Teams, Adopting Zero Trust Architecture, and Utilizing AI/ML for Continuous Monitoring. Threat modeling frameworks like STRIDE or DREAD can be used to analyze risks for new changes. Secure optimization techniques like caching and compression are also essential to prevent data leakage.

The recent leak in Palo Alto firewalls highlights the urgent need for a new infrastructure architecture and innovative methods to ensure robust security.

Once the security requirements are defined, and test cases defined to test for security vulnerabilities, these test cases should be automated and included in the CI build checks, these tests would be included with the other non-functional test cases. This should be done early in the project's development cycle, before performance tuning starts, then performance tuning won't be able to create vulnerabilities as any performance tuning that does introduce vulnerabilities will result in a build failure. The premise of this question is wrong, it assumes that both security testing and performance testing are after thought tests run at the end of the project, doing this is just setting the project up for failure and time over-runs.

Enhancing performance must align with strong security. Regular audits and threat modeling, such as STRIDE, can uncover vulnerabilities early. Use encryption and role-based access controls to safeguard data. No-code back-end frameworks like Xano offer audit logs while no-code front-end frameworks like WeWeb support secure authentication like OAuth. Collaborate across teams to integrate automated security testing into CI workflows, ensuring optimizations don’t introduce risks. Balance performance gains with continuous security validation.

I recommend doing the upfront security research on the performance enhancements to ensure they are not introducing security vulnerabilities. Implement the performance enhancements in a test and integration environment and assess the performance enhancements against the security standards of the environment. Ensure the performance enhancements within code are fully validated to include any dependencies using code reviews, code and dependency analysis tools. Review application and infrastructure enhancements for secure configuration. Lastly understand and document the risks (if any) the performance enhancement introduce.

This falls into the general concept of the architecture governance paradigm. Business ambition mandates the system architecture to enhance or optimize the performance constantly. Keeping your security architecture underneath the paradigm adaptive is always a necessity. While the security must be guaranteed from enhancement planning, re-designing, implementing, validating, production, and all through assuring phases, business agility does require architects to make trade-offs due to both time to market and cost effectiveness concerns. While the vulnerability prevention capability must be there in the initial launch, the detectability, retrospectability, and predictability can be implemented in the subsequent iterations.

Implement a Zero Trust Model assuming threats can come from both inside and outside your network. Use Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) before granting access to sensitive systems and data. Regularly perform Security Audits and Penetration Testing. Encrypt data when in transit and at end points. Properly train employees about security best practices and avoid human error that compromises security. Conduct code reviews, use secure coding practices, and perform regular vulnerability assessments. Simple best practice and great results!

A systems approach needs to be used when creating or enhancing an application. It does not matter if your team is using a SDLC approach or a RAD approach. The unit, integration, regression and end user test cases MUST include security test cases to assure new vulnerabilities don’t exist in the enhanced code. When vulnerabilities occur in enhanced software, it’s usually cause the business process to manage the development. Test and release has business process gaps. Consequently, if you find vulnerability gaps in test, it’s important not to just close the gaps but to understand what are the gaps in the development enhancement process whether it’s SDLC or RAD that led to these issues