Archer Product Security Development Assessment

The Archer Product Security Development Assessment offering helps organizations to track threat models, approvals for product initiatives, and mitigation plans to address findings as a result of the threat model risk assessment.

Archer Exchange: With the Archer Exchange, the Archer team has created a broad selection of supplemental, value-added offerings to help you get your unique risk management program on the right path, right from the start. You can leverage the Archer Exchange offerings to expand the use of Archer solutions into new business processes and address specific industry, geographic, regulatory, or technical requirements.

Release notes

Release date

Platform release

Notes

May 2023

6.12

Recertification and minor updates:

  • Countermeasures: Updated Related Initiatives cross reference calculation as it was displaying all project initiatives with no initiative risk assessment, if countermeasure is not assigned to any initiative risk assessment.

  • Data feed Generate Initiative Risk Assessments: When multiple records are in queue for assessment generation, records for all potential threats from the source report were being created for initiatives irrespective of the threats selected within them. Update made to the source transform to fix the issue.

February 2020

6.12

 

Overview

Companies see value in transitioning to a DevOps process model, which allows faster turnaround and less waste in the development process; however, this new model opens companies up to new security risks that need to be monitored as the development teams iterate. Third party libraries significantly increase the vulnerability of software and need to continually be monitored for risk. To reduce risk and vulnerabilities, security should be an ongoing integrated part of the DevOps process by performing continual software security tests. Product Security teams should be able to view and understand the risks that new products impart on the company and provide insight into the paths to approve or mitigate risk before deployment. With faster cycle times and a desire to quickly deploy new products, a consistent and repeatable process is essential to ensure all risks are understood at all levels.

  • Inefficient approval processes and oversight can slow down development

  • Product management needs to understand all the product features that are being worked on

  • Third party libraries massively increase the vulnerability of a software and must be continually monitored for risk (future tracking of libraries)

  • Development teams need to perform continual security tests on software to reduce vulnerabilities

  • A consistent and repeatable process is necessary to manage access and edits to product elements

Key features and benefits

The Archer Product Security Development Assessment offering enables organizations to do the following.

  • Document product initiatives for the organization.

  • Manage and track threat model information. 

  • Identify risks and mitigation strategies associated with threat modeling. 

Track results and approvals for Security Testing and Third-Party Library.

The benefits of using Archer Product Security Development Assessment include the following.

  • Consistent and repeatable process for managing initiatives and risks

  • Faster cycle times by addressing security threats earlier in the development cycle

  • Understand and minimize impacts to the organization through mitigating risks

  • Ensure accountability for security during the development cycle

User guide

Administrator guide

Prerequisites (ODA & system requirements)

Components

Prerequisites

Archer solution areas

IT & Security Risk Management

Archer use cases

Issues Management

Archer applications

Requirements for the installation and operation of ArcherProduct Security Development Assessment includes the following applications:

  • Exception Requests– Archer Issues Management

  • Remediation Plans – Archer Issues Management

Uses custom objects

No

Requires Archer on-demand application licenses

Four (4) Archer On-Demand Application licenses are required

Archer platform requirements

Archer platform release 6.12 and later

Supported Archer environments
  • On-Premises

  • Archer SaaS

Compatible use cases & applications - related applications

Application

Use case

Primary purpose of the relationship

Business Unit

 

Business Asset Catalog

To relate Business Units that are impacted by the Product Initiatives

Business Processes

Business Asset Catalog

To relate Business Processes that are impacted by the Product Initiatives

Applications

IT Asset Catalog

To relate Applications that are impacted by the Product Initiatives

Devices

IT Asset Catalog

To relate Devices that are impacted by the Product Initiatives

Products and Services

Business Asset Catalog

To relate Products and Services that are impacted by the Product Initiatives

Risk Register

Risk Catalog; Top-Down Assessment(Operational Risk Management)

or

IT Risk Management; Information Security Management System(IT Security Risk Management)

or

Operational Scenario Analysis (Operational Scenario Analysis)

To identify, track and provide visibility for Initiatives that pose a risk to the organization.

 

Control Procedures

Controls Assurance Program Management; Data Governance (Regulatory and Corporate Compliance)

or

Top-Down Assessment(Enterprise & Operational Risk Management)

or

IT Controls Assurance; IT Risk Management; Information Security Management System; PCI Management(IT Security Risk Management)

You can tie your procedures to the control procedures that they are meant to evaluate.

When you scope an entity, the system can also pull in related control procedures.

Components

Architecture diagram

The following diagram shows the relationship between the applications in Archer Product Security Development Assessment.

Process diagram

The flow is as follows: First a Product initiative is documented and its scope and threat model is documented. Any associated risk related to the product are identified and mitigated. Then the product development and testing is performed. Once all approvals are obtained the all security testing is cleared the product is deployed. Each stage is discussed below.

Scoping and Threat Model

Risk Identification and Mitigation

Development and Security Testing

Deployment

Applications

Application

Description

Product Initiatives

The Product Initiatives application documents all the information regarding the initiative. It contains the scope of the initiative, threat models, and risk assessments.

Third Party Library

The Third Party Library application documents the third party libraries used in the initiatives and associates them to the Third Party Engagements.

Initiative Risk Assessment

The Initiative Risk Assessment application captures the results from the risk assessment, findings, countermeasures, and mitigation plans or exception requests.

Countermeasures

The Countermeasures application captures the controls to reduce the risk against threats identified during the risk assessment.

Personas & access roles

The following table describes the functions that make up the application’s organization roles. Depending on the organization of your company, these functions and responsibilities may vary.

Function

Description

Initiative Leader

This person is responsible for the development of the initiative and for implementing the indicated countermeasures. This person may be a Product Owner or someone on the Product Security Team.

Security Manager

Responsible for the monitoring of third party application usage and initiative risk. This person in in charge of validating risk mitigation and risk assessment changes submitted by Initiative Leaders. This person might be a manager in the Product Security Team.

Product Manager

Responsible for reviewing and approving initiative features. They are responsible for aligning features with overall product mission and business rational. This person may be a Product Owner or someone in the Product Management department.

Risk Officer

Monitor and review initiative risk above set risk tolerances. They may also be the one who sets appropriate risk levels for different teams. This person might be someone in the Risk department or someone with authority in the Engineering department.

Applications

Initiative Leader

Security Manager

Product Manager

Risk Officer

Product Initiatives

CRU*

CRU*

RU

R

Third Party Library

CRU*

CRU*

RU

R

Initiative Risk Assessment

CRU

CRU

RU

R

Countermeasures

CRU

CRU

RU

R

Remediation Plans

CRU

CRU

R

R

Exceptions Requests

CRU

CRU

R

R

Business Units

R

R

R

R

Business Processes

R

R

R

R

Applications 

R

R

R

R

Devices

R

R

R

R

Products and Services

R

R

R

R

Risk Register 

R

R

R

R

C = Create, R = Read, U = Update, D = Delete, * Indicates Record Permissions

Note: Members of the Initiative Leader, Security Manager, Product Manager, and Risk Officer should also be assigned to the EM: Read Only groups under Enterprise Management and Third Party Risk Management to allow selection of Business Unit, Business Processes, Applications, Devices, Products and Services.

Install Archer Product Security Development Assessment

  1. Prepare for the installation.

    1. Download the installation package from myArcher.

    2. Read and understand the "Packaging Data" section of Archer Help.

  2. Install the package.
  3. Set up the data feeds.

  4. Test the installation. Test the application according to your company standards and procedures, to ensure that the use case works with your existing processes.

Install the package

Installing a package requires that you import the package file, map the objects in the package to objects in the target instance, and then install the package.

Set up data feeds

Certification environment

Date tested: May 2023

Product Name

Release Information

Archer

6.12