Security-first development with AI

Advanced AI-Assisted Coding for Developers

Thalia Barrera

AI Engineering Curriculum Manager, DataCamp

From testing to security

Shield protecting application code

Well-tested doesn't mean safe
Focus on preventing vulnerabilities before they reach production

Security-first principles

Security-first principles diagram

✔ Find vulnerability patterns early
✔ Fix with secure practices, not patches
✔ Automate security checks

Why AI for security?

AI robot scanning code for security issues

Scan unfamiliar code quickly
Surface risky hotspots
Propose concrete remediations

AI-assisted security review

🤖 Security prompt:

You are an application security engineer.

Scan this repository for common vulnerabilities such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting, cross-site request forgery, command injection, missing authentication and authorization checks, or sensitive data exposure. Follow the CWE Top 25 Most Dangerous Software Weaknesses.

For each finding include:

Where it occurs and why it is risky.

A minimal proof of concept input that could trigger it.

Security review output

Validating with security scanners

Validate AI findings with scanners
pip-audit → dependency vulnerabilities
semgrep → insecure code patterns

Interpreting scanner results

🤖 Interpreting results prompt:

Here are the scan outputs. Help me interpret the results and list the vulnerabilities found, using their official names when available.

Group the findings into quick fixes, medium effort, and architectural changes. For each finding, assess the risk and include its severity.

<copy security reports here>

Automating security checks

🤖 CI prompt:

Add the pip-audit and semgrep commands to this codebase's CI workflow to run regular security scans.

Configure the workflow to fail on high-severity findings and keep the output deterministic.

Integrate into CI workflow
Automate unit/integration tests
Automate dependency auditing and static analysis
Add OWASP ZAP for web services

Secure prompt patterns

Vague vs secure prompt comparison

The three-part pattern

Threat model → what needs protection
Secure defaults → safer primitives
Validation tests → prevent recurrence

Three-part secure prompt pattern

Let's practice!

Advanced AI-Assisted Coding for Developers