Catch critical defects before embedded software ships

The cost of escaped defects

Our recent State of Embedded Software Quality and Safety Report revealed a stark paradox: AI adoption is nearly universal, with 89.3% of organizations using AI assistants, but the governance required to manage it is dangerously lagging. Over 21% of organizations admit they aren't confident they can prevent AI from introducing new flaws into their code.

This is concerning because defects discovered during integration, operations, or field use often cost orders of magnitude more to correct than those caught earlier in the software development life cycle (SDLC).

Development Phase

• Low cost to fix
• Fast feedback
• Minimal risk

Testing Phase

• Higher debugging effort
• Limited reproducibility in testing
• Schedule pressure increases

Production and Field Deployment Phase

• Resolution is significantly more expensive and disruptive
• Limited observability in deployed systems
• Potential recalls or field failures
• Customer disruption from patches and updates
• Brand reputation damage
• Regulatory reporting obligations in certain sectors (e.g., automotive, medical)

Remember: Unvetted AI-generated code can introduce defects and risk into your products. In embedded systems, defects can impact reliability, compliance, and customer safety and trust.

Shift everywhere to reduce risk

Integrating application security testing throughout the SDLC, when defects are cheaper and safer to fix, is essential. Today, forward-thinking organizations go beyond “shift left” and opt for a "shift everywhere" strategy that manages risk across the entire software development life cycle, from the developer's desktop through post-deployment monitoring. Shifting everywhere enables organizations to

• Detect defects earlier during development (shift left)
• Validate behavior before full system integration
• Continuously monitor dependencies post-deployment (shift right)
• Verify both proprietary code and third-party dependencies at every stage
• Reduce dependency on late stage manual testing
• Maintain dynamic software bills of materials (SBOMs) that reflect real-time risk posture
• Enter releases with evidence-based confidence

Remember: You cannot guarantee quality by testing at the end of the SDLC. Testing throughout the development life cycle is essential.

Address C++ challenges

C++ performance and flexibility make it an attractive choice for many embedded software developers. However, its complexity can lead to subtle and hard-to-find defects like memory leaks and buffer overflows. Forward-thinking organizations address these challenges with

• Comprehensive static analysis and SCA scanning
  Leading static analysis solutions can identify issues even in very large and complex C++ codebases, including issues that span multiple files and libraries. Leading software composition analysis (SCA) solutions can accurately identify direct and indirect dependencies, even when linked in header files or external directories.
• SBOM creation and continuous management
  Leading SCA solutions create and manage SBOMs on a continuous basis. An effective SCA solution ensures that all open-source and third-party components are accounted for, providing transparency and facilitating compliance with regulatory requirements, even as software evolves over time.
• Automated scanning early in the in the IDE and on SCM events
  Leading static analysis and SCA solutions run before code is committed or on pull requests to find defects and vulnerabilities early, so they can be resolved before impacting other teams or release timelines. Effective solutions run automatically in developers’ IDEs and CI pipelines to identify insecure code patterns and vulnerable dependencies as code is created, before defects propagate downstream.