How DevSecOps Enables Secure Software Delivery
Software development is a common practice in a high-tech world like today. It is important for software and applications to be delivered on a continuous basis. DevOps is employed to shorten the development cycle. It helps in enabling continuous software delivery along with providing high quality. However, apart from fast software delivery, many other factors also play a role in efficient software delivery, such as security. Read on to learn about the significance of secure software delivery and gain an insight into how it is enabled.
What is DevSecOps?
DevSecOps is a practice that is integrated to ensure security in the software or application delivery. The basic idea is to introduce security and related measures earlier in the development life cycle. It relates to the concept of “shifting left,” which essentially means moving security testing toward the initial stages, i.e., the developers. It means they are to fix the issues in real-time via continuous feedback and security insights.
DevSecOps involves bringing about a change in the process, workflow, and tools throughout the development procedure by making security a primary part of the process and a responsibility that is to be shared among all teams working on the software. This implies that everyone who is part of the software development cycle or SDLC has their share in playing a role in integrating security into the DevOps continuous integration and continuous delivery workflow.
How is DevSecOps Implemented?
The foundation of this phenomenon is that everyone in the pipeline must consider the software’s security. In order to do so, some steps are introduced to all parts of the workflow. This includes actions to be taken for security champions to be assigned. These security champions would take care of the overall security and vulnerabilities of the development pipeline. This is done for the identification of security flaws even before the stage where final security checks are made.
The development teams must be trained in a way so as to make sure that the code is developed most securely. The teams should also continuously keep track of the pipeline so that there is no security issue from the building to the production stages of the software.
Moreover, automated security tests are also an essential part of the entire process. This enables any security issue to be automatically detected in the earlier stages. This does not require any manual work, so accuracy is maintained along with speed. Furthermore, it makes work easier for the development team as they would not have to work through the entire code again to detect where the issue is because the security problem would be highlighted automatically.
Adding on, Static Application Security Testing and Software Composition Analysis are some ways through which security issues can be spotted in the source code, and open-source dependencies can be discovered. Certain Software Composition Analysis tools make it possible to retrieve information on licenses and determine if any known security vulnerabilities are present in the open-source components. This aids developers in detecting potential vulnerabilities in the initial stages of the DevOps cycle.
There are several people who work on a piece of code that can lead to various vulnerabilities. It is an intelligent move to collaborate on Git systems. This allows automated testing for security on all pieces of code contributed by the members of the team working on the code. There are also multiple platforms that can be used, which consist of different features to scan for vulnerabilities.
Furthermore, other practices to ensure security involves monitoring the containers and carrying out behavioral analytics of the container in their runtime environment. As a result, firewalls can be introduced on various levels. In addition, dynamic and interactive application security testing is done to test the interfaces of the application that may be exposed to a security threat. Interactive Application Security Testing increases the level of accuracy in the way the software is checked for safety by combining Dynamic Application Security Testing and Static Analysis Security Testing.
Ending Note
It is an essential step to identify security issues earlier in the SDLC. Moreover, an efficient level of security can only be maintained by automating security policies instead of using manual processes. Organizations that do not take security into consideration are highly likely to suffer through security and compliance issues as they approach the final stage. This would lead to additional costs for the company to go through the entire pipeline to remove security issues. Thus, DevSecOps works as the best practice to enable a secure delivery.
With a solid foundation in technology, backed by a BIT degree, Lucas Noah has carved a niche for himself in the world of content creation and digital storytelling. Currently lending his expertise to Creative Outrank LLC and Oceana Express LLC, Lucas has become a... Read more