Everything You Need To Know About DevSecOps
Gaurav G.
Aug 6, 2022
DevOps
The software industry has coined the phrase DevSecOps in response to rising cybercrime and cybersecurity risks. Developers and businesses must implement DevSecOps to keep up with modern application and software development needs. We design, implement, and manage applications as technology builders and maintainers to assist our end customers by making their day-to-day lives more accessible and streamlined. Because these people entrust us with their time and data, we must take precautions to safeguard them on their online trips. This article gives an overview of DevSecOps and discusses why it's so essential in today's software development.
What Exactly is DevSecOps?
To define DevSecOps, we must first define what DevOps is in the first place. DevOps is a set of techniques and technologies that combine software/app development (Dev) with information technology (IT) operations, as many of us are aware (Ops). DevOps improves an organization's capacity to release apps and services more quickly and offers numerous benefits to any firm looking to stay competitive in today's fast-paced environment.
With more firms embracing the model, DevOps has quickly become the norm in application development. DevOps has become more accessible and appealing to implement due to advancements in IT, such as cloud computing, shared resources, and dynamic provisioning.
DevSecOps is a philosophy that extends the DevOps approach by incorporating security measures into all phases of DevOps. The DevSecOps technique fosters a culture of 'Security as Code,' with continual, flexible collaboration between the app's release engineers and the organization's established security teams.
What Is DevSecOps and How Does It Work?
The advantages of DevSecOps are straightforward: Enhanced automation throughout the software delivery process decreases attacks and downtime while eliminating mistakes and also speed up the software development process. Incorporating security into a DevOps framework can be performed smoothly with the correct DevOps tools and practices.
Consider the Following DevOps and DevSecOps Workflow:
Within a version control management system, a developer develops code.
The modifications are saved in the version control system.
Another developer downloads the code from the version control management system and does static code analysis to find any security flaws or problems in the code quality.
Using an infrastructure-as-code technology like Chef, an environment is then constructed. The program is installed, and the system's security configurations are applied.
The freshly deployed application is subsequently subjected to a test automation suite, including backend, UI, integration, security, and API tests.
The program is deployed to a production environment if it passes these tests.
This new production environment is constantly monitored for operational security risks to the system.
Organizations may work seamlessly and swiftly toward a shared objective of improved code quality, security, and compliance with a test-driven development environment in place and automated testing and continuous integration as part of the workflow.
What is the Significance of DevSecOps?
Finally, DevSecOps is essential because it intentionally integrates security into the SDLC early. It's easier and less expensive to discover and patch vulnerabilities before they go too far into production or after release when development groups code with security in mind from the start. DevSecOps allows companies in several industries to break through boundaries between development, safety, and operations, allowing them to deploy more secure software faster.
Automotive:
DevSecOps adds automated security tests and checks to all phases of development, resulting in a greater level of security in a CI/CD system. These tests confirm that the code is secure enough to forward to the next phase. Automation of the vulnerability management process and open-source configuration scanning are two of the most popular DevSecOps initiatives. Regardless of the deployment framework, automation allows development, security, and operational roles in the unified DevSecOps team to collaborate and scale their viewpoints across the SDLC.
Healthcare:
HIPAA-compliant DevSecOps facilitates digital transformation activities while safeguarding the privacy and security of sensitive patient data.
eCommerce, Financial Services, and Retail:
DevSecOps assists in addressing the OWASP Top 10 online application security vulnerabilities and maintaining PCI DSS data privacy and security compliance for consumer, retailer, and financial services transactions, among other things.
Devices That are Embedded, Networked, Dedicated, Consumer, or IoT:
Developers can use DevSecOps to design secure code that reduces the risk of a CWE. The top 25 most hazardous software flaws
How Do You Put DevSecOps Into Practice?
Implementing DevSecOps from the ground up can be difficult if you're striving for digital transformation and want to improve your engineering methods. Many businesses have benefited from New Context's assistance in taking those vast steps. Here are a few of the things we've discovered:
Don't Try This on Your Own:
If you don't have much experience or haven't worked on a DevOps team (or something similar), get to know folks who have. The DevSecOps community is large, welcoming, and ever-expanding. Start with internet resources to better comprehend the principles (we recommend DevOps.com). Whether you come to us or contact another group, make sure you make efforts to learn more about the DevSecOps community as a whole.
Iterate and Test:
As you construct your new software pipeline, testing becomes a critical component in safeguarding your infrastructure. Instead of seeing failure as a setback, learn to embrace it as an opportunity. Each failure shows a new lesson to be learned, allowing you to create a better product. The more robust your tests are, the stronger your program will be and the more secure it will be.
The Trust Automation:
The use of security and compliance automation minimizes the time it takes to manage your software and infrastructure. Examine how you might create a mechanism for encoding your security policy. Incorporate your compliance controls into your release workflow. This improves productivity and uniformity while lowering the chance of introducing security problems, making/ developing the product more reliable.
Communicate:
It's not easy to change your company's culture. Running and putting up a new manner of conducting business comes with a lot of complexity. Each team member will mature and approach the shift in their unique way. The goal is to ensure that everyone stays on the same route. Standups and retrospectives can go a long way toward keeping your team engaged. However, when employing digital tools, keep in mind that they may interfere with the delivery of voice intonation, eye contact, and mood, all of which are important during critical discussions.
Adhere to a Set of Principles:
Have a moral framework in place that works for your business. This will provide your employees with a continual reference point for their tasks. Our Lean Security Manifesto lays out the four concepts we follow to keep everyone on track: Awareness, Simplification, Automation, and Measurement. By keeping these four fundamental values in mind, we've become more consistent in the solutions we deliver to our clients, regardless of who in our organization is interacting with them.
Loops of Feedback:
Create continuous feedback loops to ensure your process's viability. Ensure that the key performance indicators (KPIs) that define your success are tracked and analyzed. After completing your analysis, please make the necessary changes to your product or project to improve it. Rinse and repeat as needed.
DevSecOps in the Future:
DevSecOps is becoming more widely regarded as a method of project development. In other words, the potential for more excellent job prospects seems promising. DevOps will either fade away or be absorbed into DevSecOps as more firms recognize the value of end-to-end security implementation. Furthermore, the more automation introduced to the process, the more enterprises adopt DevSecOps. When combined with improved security, automation saves time and makes DevSecOps deployment a no-brainer.
Conclusion:
There's no denying that DevSecOps is changing the way businesses approach security. However, many mid and low-level companies are still apprehensive of moving to DevSecOps for various reasons, including a lack of awareness of what DevSecOps is, an unwelcome culture shift for employees, funding constraints, and sometimes just the ambiguity of the name. The technical and business benefits of deploying DevSecOps are pretty promising. Although there will undoubtedly be some setbacks when you first begin, DevSecOps can be highly beneficial to your firm in the long term. Working with a reputable solution provider like Sterling TechnoLabs can be crucial.