What Factorio Can Teach Us About Application Security  

For those who aren’t familiar, Factorio is a PC game centered around factory-building and resource optimization. You start with manual work—mining resources and building the most basic capabilities—but quickly progress to stitching together fully automated systems that run without constant attention. At scale, these factories handle massive production volumes with minimal input, letting players focus on what’s next rather than what’s now.

The same principles of efficiency and scalability apply to AppSec. In traditional application security workflows, engineers are often bogged down by repetitive, manual tasks like vulnerability scanning, triaging findings, and managing alerts. These tasks require significant time to handle properly, which can slow down a team’s ability to respond to new threats, tackle more strategic security initiatives, and even lead to burn-out from alert fatigue.

From Manual to Automated: Rethinking AppSec Workflows  

In many ways, AppSec teams today are like early-stage Factorio players: manually mining for issues and laboring over repetitive tasks that, in an ideal world, should be automated. By rethinking these workflows, we can begin to build a security system that “runs itself,” allowing teams to focus on more critical aspects like threat modeling, strategic planning, and architecture.

Just as Factorio players build automated systems, security teams can move away from repetitive processes by incorporating AI and machine learning to handle tasks like:  

• Automated Discovery: Continuously scanning and mapping the application’s attack surface.

• Intelligent Processing: Filtering out false positives and prioritizing true threats.

• Seamless Integration: Connecting these workflows to existing tools and processes so they work as a single system.

Building a Security System That Scales  

Factorio challenges players to scale their factories while keeping everything running smoothly. The incentive of the game is to learn how to scale yourself to be able to make actual progress. The same challenge exists in application security, where keeping up isn’t possible without some form of automated leverage.. When implementing scalable automation, security teams should:  

1. Start Small: Begin with foundational tools and expand as needed.  

2. Customize: Tailor workflows to match the unique needs of each organization.  

3. Optimize & Scale: Continuously refine processes and grow coverage without adding manual work.  

Moving Beyond Basic Security Tasks  

As in Factorio, where players move from basic automation to ambitious goals, AppSec teams that automate effectively can shift focus to high-impact areas, such as:  

• Advanced threat modeling  

• Researching emerging attack vectors

• Incorporating Threat Intelligence 

• Building and reviewing  secure architectures

• Building relationships with development teams 

• Leading strategic security initiatives  

The Future of Security Automation  

The complexity and sheer number of applications in today’s organizations have already surpassed what human teams can handle, and continuing a manual approach to these repetitive tasks means a never-ending game of catch up. Modern AppSec solutions will need to follow the Factorio model: scalable, adaptable, and capable of handling repetitive tasks with minimal human input so that security teams have a chance at staying on top of their workload.