9 Things Application Security Champions Need to Succeed

Application security leaders are increasingly developing formal security champion programs that help their companies better embed security expertise and accountability across development and DevOps teams. Security champions are developers, architects, and engineers who take the lead within their teams and projects on security objectives.

"A security champion is fundamentally an enabler and promoter of application security best practices," says Shawn Asmus, director of threat management for Optiv. "They help promote the adoption of tools and standards, as well as consult with developers regarding testing results and proposed remediations."

Security champions pursue advanced training and are an extra resource for their peers to answer security-related questions. They work with the security team to set realistic requirements for their peers, to more effectively choose and integrate security tools that mesh with development workflows, and to ensure that dev teams are making good on their security promises.

We recently surveyed some experts to get perspective on what security champions need to succeed in their roles. Here's what they had to say.