Applying Agility for Sustainable Security

Systems engineering faces ongoing challenges due to the pace of change in technology and needs as well as the complexity, resilience, and adaptability demanded of solutions. System security needs and challenges are a prominent factor in the increasing demands placed on solutions and the systems engineers who design and develop them. The adoption of program level agile execution is one strategy for addressing these escalating challenges. In this article we describe how the broadly adopted technical processes from the ISO/IEEE/IEC 15288:2015 standard can be executed using agile methods to realize a large complex solution. In addition, we provide specific recommendations for executing these processes in a manner that enables systems to be sustainably secure – that is, to retain the desired level of security throughout the life cycle.