Security is no longer a checkpoint at the end of development. It’s an integral part of delivering reliable and trustworthy software. As security perimeters increasingly dissolve in the face of cloud-native, API-driven environments, software developers are likewise becoming more responsible for more than just writing secure code. They are expected to understand how their code interacts with infrastructure, user behaviors, and potential attack vectors.
According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Cybersecurity Outlook, organizations must pivot from having a reactive security posture to proactive resilience. It calls for real-time visibility, cross-functional coordination, and routine simulations to improve operational response. This sentiment is shared by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which formally recommends the use of simulated attacks as part of a comprehensive control strategy.
Security simulations are among the most practical strategies for developers and security engineers to identify hidden vulnerabilities and test the real-world resilience of their applications and assets. From phishing simulations to breach and attack simulation (BAS) tools, such methods provide continuous and measurable insights that go beyond traditional vulnerability scans or periodic penetration testing.
The idea in all of these cases is to answer a key question: How would our systems and people actually respond if we were in an actual attack right now?
Developers as the First Line of Defense Against Phishing
Phishing remains a dominant entry point for threat actors, and software development teams are attractive targets, because they have access to resources with valuable private user data. While often viewed as a user-awareness issue, phishing simulations have critical implications for developers, particularly in building tools and software that utilize email-based authentication flows.
A phishing simulation can train internal teams to detect and respond to suspicious messages, but these can also give developers insights into weak links in the communication stack. For instance, how easily can a spoofed email cause an end-user to divulge access credentials or other information to attackers?
Developers can also incorporate audit logs or endpoint monitoring solutions that help reveal technical vulnerabilities potentially exposed by user errors. These are risks that code alone could not prevent.
For developers, phishing simulations are also an opportunity to validate defensive controls like Sender Policy Framework (SPF), DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM), and Domain-based Message Authentication Reporting and Conformance (DMARC) configurations. If simulated phishing emails can bypass these, then it indicates that the code is not the only risk surface – which is generally the case.
Moreover, teams writing onboarding flows, admin panels, or support tools need to evaluate how easily these components can be weaponized through social engineering. A simulation can help frame these attack narratives in advance.
The Role of Simulations in Developer-Centric Security Practices
Simulations are not just about security awareness. They’re also about reducing real technical risk by utilizing measurable feedback. Traditional vulnerability assessments tend to be static and snapshot-based. In contrast, simulations mimic attacker behavior in motion. This dynamic nature is particularly useful for developers who work in agile environments where code can change on a weekly or even daily basis.
For instance, breach and attack simulations (BAS) can automatically assess whether a recent change to an authentication flow will introduce session fixation or replay vulnerabilities, two common flaws that may not surface in code reviews but can be exploited in live environments. Meanwhile, tabletop simulations can walk teams through decision-making during a breach scenario to test how people respond.
These tests can help highlight the impact of unclear system ownership or undocumented error handling. This matters because simulations aren’t just about catching users with fake emails. The idea is to directly test the code and design decisions that developers make. Through simulations, developers gain early visibility into issues that might otherwise go undetected until after an actual breach.
Even secure code can lead to risks if it’s embedded in systems with poor documentation or unclear accountability. Simulations help uncover those weaknesses before attackers do.
Operationalizing the Adversary with Breach and Attack Simulation
BAS tools go further by emulating full attack chains against live environments.
These tools replicate real-world tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) based on frameworks like MITRE ATT&CK. Developers can then use BAS output to trace whether an application or service can be exploited due to misconfigured identity and access management (IAM) roles, missing endpoint and detection response (EDR) alerts, or insufficient network segmentation.
For instance, a BAS tool might simulate an attacker escalating from a compromised container to a Kubernetes cluster admin role. If this simulation succeeds, it reveals more than just a vulnerability. It exposes the paths that make such a lateral movement possible. Devs working on infrastructure-as-code (IaC) or container orchestration scripts gain precise feedback on what to patch or refactor.
The simulation data can also be integrated into CI/CD workflows. By triggering simulations after deployment or during blue/green testing, dev teams can receive real-time alerts when security regressions occur. Popular BAS platforms also provide API access and automation hooks, making it easier to embed simulations into pipelines.
Simulating with Red Teaming and Tabletop Exercises
While phishing simulations and BAS focus on execution-level threats, tabletop exercises simulate strategic-level crisis management. These scenarios help cross-functional teams, including developers, walk through the “what if” scenarios of breach response.
For instance, a simulated ransomware attack can test whether dev teams know how to isolate compromised systems, revoke secrets from version control, or redirect DNS.
These sessions often reveal organizational gaps, and teams can ask the right questions. Who has access to emergency keys? Where are the recovery scripts stored? Which team owns the cloud logging stack?
From a developer’s perspective, tabletop exercises are a chance to map responsibility to components. They expose undocumented dependencies, highlight unmonitored APIs, and surface areas where observability is lacking. Developer involvement in response scenarios ensures that security decisions match system architecture reality.
Simulations Involve Continuous Validation, Not One-Time Events
Security simulations are more than defensive exercises. They are a strategic part of the modern development lifecycle. They shift security from abstract concerns to concrete, testable behaviors. For developers, this means moving beyond best practices and into real-world validation.
By incorporating simulations into development workflows, teams gain early warning of critical weaknesses and build muscle memory for responding under pressure. It’s not about building perfect software; it’s about building resilient systems and teams that can respond intelligently when things go wrong.
