Security review isn’t a box to tick after the fact. It’s the firewall between you and vulnerabilities introduced by new code, user-facing changes, or integrations that seem harmless at first. Every feature request—no matter how small—must go through a structured security review process. Skipping it risks data leaks, compliance failures, and system compromise.
A good feature request security review starts before a single line of code is written. It asks: What data will this touch? How is authentication affected? Where can this be abused? These questions must be clear, documented, and evaluated by both developers and security engineers. Real security review isn’t just about pen testing or scanning. It’s about threat modeling early, reviewing design documents, and scrutinizing dependencies.
The workflow should be automatic and repeatable. Feature requests enter a queue. Reviewers see context: business impact, data sensitivity, and third-party exposure. Risks are flagged, controls proposed, and secure coding guidelines attached before approval. Changes are tracked to connect each security decision to its related commit or deployment.