Ditch the Top-Down Approach: Why Bottom-Up Code Auditing is More Efficient
2025-03-09
Security consultants often need to become experts in a codebase quickly without writing code. This article critiques the inefficient top-down approach to code auditing, likening it to trying to visualize a whole marathon from the air – discouraging and overwhelming. The author advocates a bottom-up approach: deeply understanding code details, gradually expanding scope, ultimately gaining a deeper understanding than even some developers, and finding more bugs. This method is not only more efficient but also more enjoyable.