Segregation, segmentation and zero trust: Building secure dev and QA environments

Modern software development increasingly depends on development (Dev) and quality assurance (QA) environments that closely replicate production systems to enable rapid, reliable testing and deployment. While these environments accelerate innovation and reduce time-to-market, their complexity and frequent changes can introduce significant security risks if not managed with equal rigor as production. Overlooking robust security practices in Dev and QA can expose organizations to data breaches, regulatory non-compliance, and operational disruptions, ultimately undermining brand trust and business continuity.

This research paper presents a resilience oriented approach for securing Dev and QA environments, emphasizing proactive risk management and architectural discipline. The proposed methodology advocates for strict isolation of Dev, QA, and production environments using dedicated Cloud accounts and VPCs with granular network controls. It further recommends enforcing Zero Trust governance through continuous authentication, just-in-time and least privilege access, and eliminating implicit trust within internal networks. The framework incorporates threat informed defense by applying MITRE ATT&CK tactics to harden CI/CD pipelines and ephemeral testing resources. Compliance driven controls are also integrated, aligning with the NIST Cybersecurity Framework to ensure synthetic test data supporting regulatory requirements such as GDPR and ISO 27001.

By adopting these principles, organizations can significantly reduce the attack surface of non-production environments while maintaining development agility. This work demonstrates that treating Dev and QA environments with the same resilience and security focus as production is essential for safeguarding the entire software development lifecycle.