What is DevSecOps?

DevSecOps has grown in significance since the majority of businesses have undergone digital transformation by migrating from on-premises infrastructures to the public cloud. Although cloud service providers deliver solutions that are scalable, highly available, cost-effective, and trustworthy, these benefits introduce new security risks.

Therefore, greater emphasis must be placed on security than ever before. With cloud-based services, there is no room for error. By failing to adhere to security rules, you may expose your network to dozens of security hazards. Consequently, security should be considered earlier in the design process.

DevSecOps is the integration of security measures into the DevOps process. DevSecOps entails the establishment of a "Security as Code" culture through the collaboration of security teams and releases engineers in an ongoing, adaptable manner.

DevSecOps is vital for a software company since it improves software quality and security by integrating security into every aspect of the software development lifecycle. Unlike prior development cycles in which security was incorporated at the end and managed by a separate team. Currently, security is an inherent component of development.

In this article, we will describe what DevSecOps is, the phases of DevSecOps, why organizations need DevSecOps, the benefits and best practices of DevSecOps implementation, DevSecOps tools, and the differences between DevOps and DevSecOps. In addition, this article examines the most common obstacles you are likely to encounter during DevSecOps implementation and provides advice for overcoming them.

What is DevSecOps?

DevSecOps, also known as SecDevOps and DevOpsSec, refers to the integration of development, security, and operations. DevSecOps incorporates security as a shared responsibility throughout the whole IT lifecycle.

DevSecOps has a mission to implement security decisions and actions with the same size and velocity as development and operations decisions and activities.

Every business with a DevOps architecture should strive to adopt a DevSecOps mentality and bring personnel of all skill levels and technological disciplines to a higher degree of security proficiency. From testing for potential security exploits to constructing business-driven security services, a DevSecOps framework guarantees that security is integrated into apps rather than bolted on after the fact.

DevSecOps offers continuous integration with reduced compliance costs and faster product delivery and release by ensuring that security is present at every level of the software delivery lifecycle. For the success of DevSecOps, you must embrace two fundamental principles:

• Security as code: Security as code refers to the incorporation of security into the existing DevOps technologies. This indicates the preference for automation over manual methods. It refers to the use of static analysis tools that examine only the modified areas of code, as opposed to scanning the complete code base.

• Infrastructure as code: Infrastructure as code (IaC) specifies the DevOps tools needed to configure and maintain infrastructure components. Chef, Ansible, and Puppet are illustrative. No longer do system administrators spend their time resolving system faults. Using IaC, if a system has a problem, it is dissolved and replaced by a new system.

Why Do You Need DevSecOps?

The transition to flexible cloud computing platforms, shared storage, and data, and dynamic applications has given enormous benefits to enterprises seeking to prosper and expand by utilizing innovative apps and services. While DevOps applications have taken a big step in speed, scalability, and functionality during this transition, they frequently lack robust security and compliance. This is why DevSecOps was introduced into the software development lifecycle to bring together development, operations, and security.

In a world of rapid release cycles, increasing security threats, and continuous integration, the importance of DevSecOps is evident. Hackers are constantly searching for the most efficient methods to distribute malware and other flaws. Imagine if they could put malware into a program during the development phase, and this virus was not identified until after the product was released to customers. Both the customer system and the company's reputation would be severely damaged.

A cultural and technical change toward a DevSecOps methodology enables organizations to manage security issues in real-time more efficiently. By agile's lean techniques, security testing is performed in iterations without delaying delivery cycles. Critical security vulnerabilities are addressed as soon as they are identified, not after a threat or breach has happened.

Embedding security protocols into the development process as opposed to adding them as a "layer on top" enables DevOps and security experts to embrace the potential of agile approaches as a team without compromising the objective of producing secure code.

As a result, any firm involved in application development and distribution must give equal weight to security alongside development and operations.

What are the DevSecOps Benefits?

There are numerous benefits of DevSecOps' intrinsic security mechanisms. Among the advantages of implementing DevSecOps are the following:

• Enhanced proactive security: DevSecOps introduces cybersecurity methods at the outset of the software development lifecycle. The code is inspected, audited, scanned, and tested for security flaws throughout the development process. These concerns are handled immediately upon identification. Before introducing new dependencies, security vulnerabilities are resolved. When protective technology is found and installed early in the process, it is less expensive to resolve security risks.

  In addition, improved coordination between the development, security, and operations teams enhances an organization's reaction to incidents and problems. DevSecOps approaches reduce the time required to patch vulnerabilities, allowing security teams to concentrate on higher-value tasks. These techniques help ensure and simplify compliance, eliminating the need to retrofit application development projects for security.

• Faster and more economical software delivery: When developing software in a non-DevSecOps setting, security issues can cause significant delays. Code and security issues can be time-consuming and costly to resolve. DevSecOps's rapid, safe delivery saves time and money by avoiding the need to repeat a procedure to fix security issues after the fact.

  Integrated security eliminates redundant reviews and wasteful rebuilds, resulting in more secure code. This makes the process more efficient and economical.

• Repeatable and flexible procedures: As enterprises develop, so do their security postures. DevSecOps facilitates repeatable and flexible processes. This guarantees that security is consistently implemented throughout the environment as it changes and adapts to new requirements. A mature DevSecOps implementation will feature robust automation, configuration management, orchestration, containers, immutable infrastructure, and serverless compute environments.

• Accelerated fixing of security flaws: A significant advantage of DevSecOps is the speed with which it manages newly identified security vulnerabilities. As DevSecOps incorporates vulnerability scanning and patching into the release cycle, the capacity to find and repair commonly exploited vulnerabilities and exposures (CVE) is lessened. This reduces the window of opportunity for threat actors to exploit vulnerabilities in public-facing production systems.

• Automation in development: If a firm utilizes a continuous integration/continuous delivery pipeline to deploy software, cybersecurity testing can be incorporated into an automated test suite for operations teams.

  The automation of security checks is highly dependent on the project and organizational objectives. Automated testing can ensure that all software dependencies are up-to-date and that the software has passed security unit testing. In addition, it can verify and secure code with static and dynamic analysis before releasing the final update to production.

• Communication and cooperation: One of the most distinguishing characteristics of DevOps is that it eliminates silos between teams. Since development and operational teams collaborate to share knowledge, skills, and expertise while also enhancing each other's procedures.

  DevSecOps operates similarly. Security professionals communicate with coworkers and educate them on security concerns and vice versa. In addition, they will define who is best qualified to resolve particular problems and how everyone may contribute to achieving security goals.

  DevSecOps assists all non-security personnel in comprehending how their aims and practices coincide with and are impacted by security. The technique increases their awareness and contributes to the overall pipeline's efficiency and efficacy.

• Reduced costs: Automation provides three key benefits: speed, dependability, and cost savings. DevSecOps automation enables enterprises to meet security objectives with less human intervention ( less manpower). In addition, with fewer delays caused by security inspections, the code can reach the market considerably faster. This enables businesses to outrun rivals and meet developing client demands at a superior rate.

  DevSecOps decreases the expense of security operations and the probability of incurring financial fines due to insufficient security. In addition to enhancing the efficacy of security as a value producer, the speed it provides also contributes to its speed.

• Free time for ongoing development: With the speed and dependability provided by DevSecOps, practitioners frequently have more time for other responsibilities. This can be used to solve issues that the organization may not have had the time or resources to address in the past. However, it is also applicable in other contexts.

  One of the most effective ways to capitalize on this is to have security experts develop new features. In addition, they can train coworkers or update existing processes depending on new advances in areas such as cyber resilience. In other words, DevSecOps facilitates continual security enhancements.

What are the DevSecOps Challenges?

Organizations face a variety of challenges related to people, procedures, tools, and infrastructure during DevSecOps implementation. It is essential that IT managers can recognize them within their organization and address them effectively. Some of the greatest obstacles to DevSecOps implementation are as follows:

• Skills shortage: According to research, developers lack the formal security expertise necessary to execute certain DevSecOps procedures. Without this understanding, your DevSecOps system will suffer. Formal in-house training can enhance awareness and provide experienced employees with opportunities to mentor less-skilled colleagues. But don't rely solely on your expertise; invest in online self-paced courses and external training organizations to get everyone up to speed.

• Culture clash: Resistance may be fruitless, but it may certainly impede progress. Change is difficult for many people, especially if it entails a mental change from "security as an afterthought" to "security first." By establishing "security champions" in your teams, you may disprove the misconception that heightened security impedes progress and stifles innovation.

  Bring individuals on board early to build new processes that work for everyone. It is all about educating employees across the organization that code can be provided quickly and securely at the same time, and encouraging teams to work collaboratively toward this common objective.

• Automation frustration: Numerous classic security methods, such as doing compliance checks, architectural risk analysis, threat modeling, and risk management, require security personnel to run tests, assess results, and then reiterate the process with the developers. This lengthy procedure conflicts with the speed of DevOps, but some of these processes are difficult to automate, putting security and DevOps at odds.

  To address this time-consuming difficulty, you must leverage the capabilities of DevSecOps tools to make standards, policies, models, and service-level agreements more easily testable.

• Inadequate equipment: Rapid deployment is not supported by static application security testing (SAST) technologies. These techniques are essential for finding vulnerabilities early on, but they generate a large number of false positives, which must be manually evaluated and require a significant amount of processing time. Developers avoid using them as a result.

  In addition, widely used tools such as containers are very vulnerable to flaws. This hazard is amplified when the containers contain embedded third-party elements, such as code libraries. The developers are torn between utilizing these existing components for efficiency and the risk of code corruption.

  To minimize potential problems with standalone SAST tools, it may be prudent to utilize cloud services more often. In the meantime, a robust orchestration platform may help to mitigate the issues with containers.

• Security versus Speed: For DevOps, release velocity is the top priority. However, security teams are focused on maintaining the security of software through time-consuming techniques that inhibit rapid release cycles. There will be resistance to implementing DevSecOps due to the perception that security and DevOps are incompatible. DevSecOps also requires rapid feedback loops to preserve traceability, identify errors, and resolve problems. However, old procedures and cultural barriers make it difficult to execute these practices.

  By pushing security processes to the left of the software development lifecycle (SDLC), developers can detect security vulnerabilities early on, relieving the burden on security employees and decreasing costs later in the process. And because you will have a greater possibility of discovering vulnerabilities, teams should immediately implement security patch management to address them.

• Complicated cloud infrastructure: If you have a complicated cloud environment, such as a system-of-systems (SoS), it may be challenging to build secure software at the required rate for DevSecOps. Moreover, whether your architecture consists of a multi-cloud environment with microservices or an automated distributed deployment infrastructure, security assurance and data protection will present significant obstacles. To address these obstacles, you should prioritize data security alongside your SDLC, such as with a SaaS security lifecycle.

• Technological excess: While the usage of tools is explicitly encouraged in DevSecOps, challenges arise when security and other teams utilize different tools. Without standards, documentation, and training, it will be difficult for developers to choose or even utilize the increasingly complicated technologies available. In addition, integrating the technologies they do select into the DevOps pipeline can be difficult and time-consuming.

  Encourage your teams to set tool standards and usage guidelines, which will simplify tool selection and utilization, and to better document which tools are being utilized. This would improve configuration management issues and explain the recommended security settings for tools so that everyone is on the same page and integration is accelerated.

• Contesting the regulation: If you operate in a highly regulated environment, DevSecOps adoption can also be challenging. When it comes to implementing continuous practices, characteristics such as zero-trust security architectures, restricted communication with stakeholders, and isolated environments all provide obstacles.

  You will be required by regulations to be methodical and transparent in your vulnerability management, design-aware in your risk assessment, and consider vulnerabilities in each software component separately.

What are the Phases of DevSecOps?

Instead of applying security to a finished product, DevSecOps combines active security audits and security testing into the workflows of agile development and DevOps. This ensures that security is embedded into the product from the very beginning.

DevSecOps requires that security be applied to each phase of the usual DevOps pipeline: Plan, Code, Build, Test, Release, and Deploy.

Since the DevOps pipeline is continuous, DevSecOps is as well. This comprises continuous feedback and continuous operations, as well as continuous integration and continuous delivery and deployment (CI/CD). Each function is carried out in a continuous manner rather than being tested periodically or deployed according to a schedule.

• Plan: The planning phase is the least automated part of DevSecOps, requiring security analysis collaboration, debate, review, and strategy. Teams should conduct a security analysis and develop a plan outlining where, when, and how security testing will be conducted.

• Code: DevSecOps solutions for the code phase facilitate the development of more secure code. Important security procedures throughout the code phase include static code analysis, code reviews, and pre-commit hooks.

  When security technologies are directly integrated into the Git workflow of developers, every commit and merge will automatically trigger a security test or review. These technologies support several programming languages and integrated development environments. SpotBugs, Gerrit, Phabricator, CheckStyle, PMD, and Find Security Bugs are a few of the most popular security code tools.

• Build: Once developers contribute code to the source repository, the build step begins. DevSecOps build technologies prioritize automating the security examination of build output artifacts. Software component analysis, static application software testing (SAST), and unit tests are essential security approaches. An existing CI/CD pipeline can be augmented with tools for automating these tests.

  Installing and building upon third-party code dependencies, which may be from an unknown or untrusted source, is common practice for developers. External code dependencies may include vulnerabilities and exploits, inadvertently or maliciously. It is essential to review and scan these dependencies for security vulnerabilities during the build phase.

  SonarQube, OWASP Dependency-Check, Retire.js, SourceClear, Checkmarx, and Snyk are examples of well-known analysis tools for the build phase.

• Test: After a build artifact has been successfully deployed to staging or testing environments, the test phase is triggered. Executing a comprehensive test suite requires considerable time. This phase should fail quickly so that the more costly testing tasks can be performed last.

  The testing phase employs dynamic application security testing (DAST) instruments to detect live application flows such as user authentication, authorization, SQL injection, and API-related endpoints. The security-focused DAST compares an application to a list of known critical vulnerabilities, such as the OWASP Top 10.

  JBroFuzz, BDD Automated Security Tests, OWASP ZAP, Boofuzz, IBM AppScan, GAUNTLT, Arachi, and SecApp suite are only a few of the available open source and paid testing tools that offer a variety of functionality and support for language ecosystems.

• Release: It is expected that by the time the DevSecOps cycle reaches the release phase, both the application code and the executable will have undergone extensive testing. During this phase, the primary emphasis is placed on safeguarding the infrastructure of the runtime environment by analyzing the configuration values of the environment. These configuration values include user access control, network firewall access, and secret data management.

  In the release phase, the principle of least privilege (POLP) is of paramount importance. PoLP denotes that any user, program, or process must have minimal access to perform its function. This requires auditing API keys and access tokens to limit the owners' access. Without this audit, an attacker could discover a key that grants access to unintended system areas.

  Because they provide visibility into the static configuration of dynamic infrastructure, configuration management tools are a crucial component for release-phase security. The configuration of the system can then be audited and reviewed. The configuration becomes immutable and can only be modified via commits to a repository for configuration management. HashiCorp Terraform, Ansible, Puppet, Chef, and Docker are some well-known configuration management tools.

  The security community provides best practices for hardening your infrastructures, such as Center for Internet Security (CIS) benchmarks and NIST configuration checklists.

• Deploy: If all of the preceding steps are completed without error, it is now time to deploy the build artifact to production. During the phase where the system is being deployed, the areas of security concern that need to be addressed are those that only occur against the live production system. For instance, any changes in a configuration that exists between the production environment, the environment that came before it (the staging environment), and the environment that will be used for development should be carefully examined. Validation and inspection of production TLS and DRM certificates are recommended in preparation for their imminent renewal.

  In the deploy phase, it is a good idea to use runtime verification tools such as Falco, Osquery, and Tripwire. These tools extract information from a system that is already running to verify whether or not it functions as planned. Organizations can also apply chaos engineering principles by conducting experiments on a system to increase confidence in the system's ability to withstand chaotic conditions. It is possible to simulate real-world events such as server crashes, hard drive failures, and severed network connections.

What are the DevSecOps Best Practices?

To unify IT operations, security teams, and application developers, organizations must integrate security into their DevOps pipelines. The goal is to make security an integral part of the software development process, as opposed to retrofitting it later in the cycle.

Here are a few best practices that will facilitate the DevSecOps process:

• Execute threat modeling: Before shifting to DevSecOps, the SANS Institute suggests conducting threat modeling and risk assessments. A threat modeling exercise can assist your security organization in gaining a better understanding of the risks to your assets, the types and sensitivity of your assets, the existing controls for safeguarding those assets, and any control gaps that need to be filled.

  Such evaluations can assist in identifying architecture and design issues in your apps that other security methods may have missed.

• Utilize DevSecOps to improve efficiency: You are merely incorporating security into your workflows. By using tools that can scan code as it is being written, security concerns can be discovered early on.

• Automate DevOps: DevOps is all about speed of delivery, and this does not need to be sacrificed by the addition of security. By incorporating automated security tests and controls early in the development cycle, developers can ensure that their apps are delivered quickly.

  For security analysis and testing across the software development lifecycle, from source-code analysis through integration and post-deployment monitoring, an increasing number of test automation tools with a variety of features have become available. Contrast Security, Sonatype, Checkmarx, InSpec, Splunk, Tanium, FireEye, and Metasploit are other examples.

  Caution is advised while automating security testing. For example, if you conduct static application security testing (SAST) on nightly builds, ensure that you only check for modifications to your code that were committed that day.

  Attempting to run automated scans on the whole source code of your application every day might be time-consuming and hinder your ability to keep up with daily changes.

  Consider incorporating dynamic application security testing (DAST) into your software development lifecycle. In contrast to static analysis, which focuses on discovering potential security flaws in the code itself, DAST searches for vulnerabilities in real-time as the application is running.

  Automating DAST scans and running them against fresh or recently modified code to detect security vulnerabilities that you may have overlooked during static analysis of your application code is recommended. Because you never know what you might miss with only one set of tests, you must automate both.

  Adding automated security analysis to CI systems can prevent the introduction of dangerous code earlier in the software development lifecycle.

  The automation can be linked with lightweight embedded agents to give associated runtime analysis regarding security problems reported by the automation. Together, these approaches make it easier for developers to prioritize the code issues they need to address.

• Examine your code dependencies: According to a poll conducted in early 2017, despite growing worries about the risks of employing third-party software components, corporations are adopting more open-source software in their applications, not fewer.

  A secondary audit undertaken on more than 1,000 commercial applications revealed that 96% of them used open-source components. More than six out of ten programs featured components with known security flaws, and some of these flaws had existed for as long as four years. Despite this, just 27% of respondents reported having automatic identification and monitoring of remedies for known defects in open-source software.

  Automated processes for maintaining open-source and third-party components are a vital requirement for DevSecOps, as developers frequently lack the time to examine code in their open-source libraries or read the documentation. You must determine if your use of open-source causes contextual and other vulnerabilities in your code, as well as what effect these vulnerabilities may have on dependent programs.

  Code dependency checks are crucial to DevSecOps, and utilities such as the OWASP Dependency-Check can help ensure that your program does not contain code with known vulnerabilities. The OWASP utility scans your code and dependent open-source component libraries to see if they have any OWASP-related vulnerabilities. It operates against a database of all known vulnerabilities in open-source software that is continuously updated.

• Select Appropriate Tools: A number of the necessary technologies for incorporating security into agile DevOps are still under development, so keep a few crucial factors in mind when purchasing them. Integration is the most crucial feature of a DevSecOps tool. Security systems must be able to integrate into the development pipeline and enable the development and security teams to collaborate, rather than simply passing information back and forth. Security software must make it simple for developers to begin scans and obtain results without having to switch tools.

  Other essential qualities are swiftness and precision. Security tools should operate quickly. However, false positives might be an absolute killer in a DevOps context.

  A technology that necessitates a developer or security engineer to verify the results of a scan is of little use. Your tools must deliver outcomes that are quick, accurate, and immediately actionable.

  In a DevSecOps environment, security technologies developed for waterfall development processes are of little utility. You need tools to help your developers detect and prioritize vulnerabilities as they are building software. Rather than comparing software against signatures, the discovery of code vulnerabilities must be based on an understanding of the software.

  Any tools you select should defend you not just from known vulnerabilities, but also from unknown attacks and OWASP Top 10 dangers.

  The tools should also assist you in identifying and mitigating risks in the open-source software components you employ, as well as in identifying concerns in a way that helps you shorten the mean time to resolution.

• Train the development team on security: Obtaining the necessary resources and time to train the development team on secure coding is a significant obstacle. Frequently, developers are unaware that they are writing insecure code. Security is still not a development team priority. Investments must be made in developer security training.

• Divide things into smaller portions: SAST technologies enable developers to scan code as it is being written to receive immediate feedback on any security vulnerabilities. The tools assist developers in identifying and resolving potential security vulnerabilities as a normal part of their workflow, and should therefore be an integral part of your DevSecOps methods.

  However, the key to introducing such tools is to think small. When a security team incorporates a static testing tool into the CI/CD chain, the team tends to enable checks for a wide variety of security concerns, which creates challenges for developers.

  Instead, it is preferable to enable one or two security checks at a time and acclimate your developers to having security rules integrated into their workflow.

  For instance, when implementing a SAST tool in development, you could begin by activating only the rules for SQL injection error detection. Once your engineers realize how the tool assists them in detecting coding issues, they will be far more inclined to want to use it.

  When developing a DevSecOps capability, divide tasks into digestible portions. Select one and demonstrate its viability before moving on to the next option.

  Security personnel that disrupts operations would just slow things down and cause disagreements with developers. Think modestly at first, then amass some successes before taking the next step.

What Are DevSecOps Tools?

DevSecOps tools are a collection of cybersecurity products and services that enable businesses to develop and operate software systems securely. DevSecOps technologies ensure that typical CI/CD pipelines maintain security throughout each stage of the system/software development life cycle(SDLC) as the universe of web applications expands.

Several new DevSecOps technologies have emerged in recent years to secure DevOps pipelines and processes for enterprises and deliver a more reliable end-product or system. Developers can utilize DevSecOps technologies to test applications while maintaining security and compliance throughout the development process.

DevSecOps tools consist of the following:

• Acunetix: Acunetix offers a comprehensive website security scanner to assist developers in discovering vulnerabilities as early as possible in the development cycle. Acunetix assists enterprises to safeguard their digital assets from hackers by delivering specific technologies that can be utilized by developers to discover more problems and resolve them swiftly.

• Aqua Security: Aqua Security is a security platform that prevents intrusions and vulnerabilities across the DevSecOps pipeline by specializing in the security of apps in containers and their infrastructures. Aqua possesses extremely stringent runtime security mechanisms and controls. This tool is primarily concerned with network access and application image vulnerabilities. Aqua interfaces with several infrastructures, including Kubernetes, to secure clusters at the lowest network level and govern container activity in real-time using machine learning-based behavior profiles.

• Checkmarx: Checkmarx provides a static application security testing (SAST) tool that analyzes code for security vulnerabilities. By integrating security code analysis and testing into the development process, this tool enables developers to provide applications that have been thoroughly evaluated and tested. And Checkmarx readily interfaces with any continuous integration and development environment or tool.

• GitHub Actions: GitHub Actions is an open-source application for automating DevSecOps processes. It enables teams to create, test, and deploy code directly on GitHub, as well as perform actions depending on GitHub events like pull requests, commits, and the creation of new issues.

  GitHub Actions offers a hosted runtime environment with a restricted free plan and pay-per-use expansion options. Workflow functionality, log management, runners for major operating systems, and secret management are among the supported actions. You can define actions and processes using the YAML syntax given by Github.

• OWASP Zed Attack Proxy (ZAP): The OWASP ZAP is a well-known security tool aimed to help developers improve their software security practices. You may integrate the tool's active scanner into your CI/CD workflow, along with its many other capabilities. To boost website security, OWASP ZAP sends website traffic through a proxy server. This tool can be used to identify online vulnerabilities.

• SonarQube: SonarQube is open-source software that does code reviews automatically. The instrument aims to discover vulnerabilities, code odors, and defects in the source code. Currently, it supports over thirty programming languages. You may incorporate SonarQube into your DevSecOps workflow to provide constant feedback to all collaborators as the tool generates it.

• ThreatModeler: ThreatModeler is an automated tool for threat modeling that may be installed locally or in the cloud. ThreatModeler regularly monitors cloud computing threat models and notifies users of any upgrades or modifications. ThreatModeler offers a bidirectional application programming interface for seamless integration with CI/CD systems, allowing teams to construct safe cloud infrastructures. ThreatModeler provides reusable templates and integrates threat data and frameworks.

• Trivy: Trivy is an open-source vulnerability scanner for container images that is simple to use. It is stateless, simple to deploy, and can instantly scan images without downloading vulnerability databases. Trivy identifies vulnerabilities in operating system packages (Alpine, RHEL, CentOS, etc.) and application dependencies contained within container images. It integrates with CI technologies such as CircleCI, Travis, Jenkins, and GitLab, making it ideally suited for DevSecOps pipelines.

What is the Difference between DevOps and DevSecOps?

Understanding the distinction between DevOps and DevSecOps can help you determine which methodology is ideal for your organization's tasks. The main differences between DevOps and DevSecOps are explained below:

DevOps emphasizes collaboration between the development and testing teams across the whole application development and deployment lifecycle. Together, development and operations teams execute on shared KPIs and tools. The purpose of a DevOps strategy is to increase the deployment frequency while ensuring the application's consistency and productivity. A DevOps engineer considers issues such as how to release application upgrades with minimal impact on the user experience. DevOps teams typically do not prioritize the avoidance of security vulnerabilities throughout the delivery path, putting the application and the organization's resources at risk.

In the past, security was the responsibility of a single team throughout the final stage of development. When development cycles extended for months or even years, this was less of an issue. Effective DevOps enables rapid and frequent development cycles (often weeks or days), but antiquated security procedures can derail even the most successful DevOps operations.

DevOps evolved into DevSecOps when teams realized that the DevOps approach did not adequately handle security concerns. DevSecOps is an upgraded form of DevOps that incorporates security into the mix of Development and Operations. Instead of retrofitting security into the build, DevSecOps arose as a method for integrating the management of security before the development cycle. This technique places application security at the beginning of the build process, as opposed to the conclusion of the development pipeline. With this new methodology, a DevSecOps professional strives to ensure that programs are secure against cyber attacks before being delivered to the customer and remain secure throughout application upgrades. DevSecOps emphasizes that developers should write code with security in mind and aims to address the security challenges that DevOps does not address.

Under the DevOps methodology, developers and operations teams collaborate to create a more agile and simplified deployment architecture. DevSecOps intends to automate essential security tasks by integrating security controls and processes into the DevOps workflow. DevSecOps extends the shared responsibility ethos of DevOps to include security procedures.

DevOps and DevSecOps have similarities, such as the use of automation and continuous processes to construct collaborative development cycles. However, DevOps emphasizes delivery speed, whereas DevSecOps moves security to the left, i.e., to the earliest point possible in the development process.

What is Rugged DevOps?

Adding "rugged" to DevOps increases trust, transparency, and knowledge of potential hazards. It is a streamlined methodology in which security parameters are implemented at the outset of the project and penetration testing is conducted throughout the development cycle. Rugged is a philosophy that entails stricter constraints, and it grows in an environment where engineers are continually pushed to improve the security of their code.

The Rugged Manifesto expresses it thus:

• "I am aware that my code will be attacked by adversaries who pose a threat to our economic, physical, and national security and are both talented and relentless."

• "I'm rugged because I guarantee that my code will support the mission."

• "I am rugged because I refuse to be a source of weakness or vulnerability."

Continuous automated testing is performed throughout the development cycle in a DevSecOps system. To ruggedize a process, security must become a higher concern. This consists of incremental safety improvements in the continuous delivery pipeline and the addition of security testing to automated operations.

Common Misconceptions about DevSecOps

Here are five typical misunderstandings and fallacies that may prevent companies from implementing DevSecOps.

• DevSecOps Is Concerned With Changing the Development Process, Not Security: Due to the tight relationship between DevSecOps and DevOps, there may be a propensity to believe that the objective is to improve and alter development and operations without any need to adapt cybersecurity.

  DevSecOps requires the security team to learn and be willing to interact with the development and operations teams. It is not about security dictating how things will be done, but rather a collaborative effort to identify the best solutions for everyone.

  DevSecOps may be necessary for the security team to modify its practices and methodology to be in a position to assist in making security an integral part of the development process. As with the other myths, the key to dispelling any misunderstandings about what must change is to educate all parties.

• DevSecOps is a solution that businesses may purchase and implement: Some individuals have the erroneous belief that DevSecOps is a product or service that can be purchased and implemented as easily as other technology tools, possibly due to vendor marketing and public relations language.

  As with DevOps, there is no single tool or suite of tools that provides all DevSecOps features, despite what marketing and sales personnel may say. It is erroneous to believe that DevSecOps can be purchased and implemented without changes in cultural mentality, collaborative efforts, and processes.

  Again, education on what DevSecOps is and is not, and what the concept implies, is required. This is especially true when senior business leaders insist that the organization immediately "purchase" DevSecOps to improve the security of the development and operations process.

• DevSecOps Leads to Control Loss: It's easy to see where this idea may have originated, as a large portion of the development community may consider product security as a barrier that restricts their independence and creativity. Developers, project managers, and others appreciate being in charge of their work and its progression.

  Moreover, people may be concerned about the impact of DevSecOps automation on their sense of purpose within the team. Manual procedures may be slow and tedious, but they provide teams with hands-on experience and a sense of control.

  DevSecOps leaders must educate the team on how the process functions and why it is advantageous for all to dispel misconceptions regarding control. Sharing real-world examples of how successfully DevSecOps is functioning at other firms and the gains they are achieving with the support of all team members could be beneficial.

• DevSecOps Exclusively a Technological or Cultural Initiative: Essentially, this is a double myth. It is erroneous to believe that DevSecOps is solely about technology because it disregards the crucial human and process components. It is comparable to the belief that DevSecOps is something that organizations may buy and run independently.

  DevSecOps is dependent on technology, but it is not the only factor. How people collaborate to enhance processes plays a significant role.

  Inversely, to believe that DevSecOps is merely a matter of altering the development operations' culture is likewise erroneous. While culture and mentality undoubtedly play a role, development teams also require security-enhancing tools.

• DevSecOps is a Set-and-Forget, One-Size-Fits-All Model: How wonderful it would be to deploy a safe development framework that is easily adaptable to any sort of organization and, once installed, requires no maintenance. Sadly, this is not how DevSecOps operates.

  Some of the core ideas apply to all types and sizes of organizations. However, a DevSecOps initiative is intended to be flexible so that it can help an organization meet its specific objectives, fit within its culture, and be in sync with all related operations, including security. DevSecOps methodologies are as diverse as the organizations they serve.

  Automation is included, and it is a significant component of DevSecOps. However, the human factor is vital to success. Change is continuous in both the development and security domains. Therefore, it is erroneous to believe that procedures can continue to operate without modification.

• DevSecOps Reduces Agility: DevSecOps and agility are great partners for organizations that wish to significantly improve software development life cycle collaboration. A focus on security at multiple phases of the software development process may appear to hinder agility, however, this is not the case in practice.

  As security is included in the operations of all departments and workers, there is a significantly reduced likelihood that critical weaknesses will be discovered at the end of the process or after release, causing significant delays in release dates.

• Small Organizations Do Not Need DevSecOps: Some organizations think that they are too small and unimportant to be the target of a cyberattack. Every organization, regardless of size or industry, is vulnerable and must take security seriously. The average cost of a data breach to a business is in the millions and is fast increasing. No organization should feel comfortable gambling with such a profit.

What are the Required Skills for a DevSecOps Engineer?

DevSecOps engineers require both the technical expertise of IT security experts and familiarity with the DevOps approach. In addition, they must have an in-depth understanding of cybersecurity, including the most recent threats and developments.

These are among the primary competencies required of DevSecOps engineers:

• Knowledge of risk assessment techniques and threat modeling

• Awareness of the DevOps ideas and culture

• Current knowledge of cybersecurity risks, the most recent software, and best practices

• Proficiency in communication and teamwork

• Familiarity with programming languages such as Java, Ruby, Perl, Python, and PHP

• Familiarity with such applications as ThreatModeler, Chef, Puppet, Checkmarx, Immunio, and Aqua.