What is Shift-Left Security?
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Quick Answer
Shift-left security means moving security testing and controls earlier in the software lifecycle — into development and CI — so issues are found and fixed when they are cheapest, rather than in production.
Detailed Answer
In practice it means IDE and pre-commit checks, SAST and dependency scanning in CI, IaC and secret scanning before deploy, and developer security training. The economic argument is strong: a vulnerability caught at commit costs a fraction of one caught in production.
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Interview Tip
Use the cost argument (cheaper to fix early) and give concrete pipeline checks — it makes the concept tangible.
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