What is DevSecOps?

22 april 2022 om 10:00 by ParTech Media - Post a comment

DevSecOps is an essential component of the software development lifecycle. DevSecOps, like DevOps, is about culture and shared responsibility as much as it is about technology and techniques.

DevSecOps' goals are similar to DevOps': to deliver better applications safely and respond quickly to software issues in production.

With that basic introduction, let us understand the basics of DevSecOps and how it works.

Table of contents

  1. What is DevSecOps?
  2. 3 Disciplines of DevSecOps
  3. Advantages of the DevSecOps Approach
  4. How does DevSecOps Work?
  5. Conclusion

What is DevSecOps?

The core philosophy of DevSecOps is quite straightforward - to fuse security measures into the DevOps process. DevSecOps helps to develop a "Security as Code" culture in which release engineers and security teams collaborate on a continuous, flexible basis. DevSecOps, like DevOps, is centered on developing new solutions for software development processes within an agile framework.

DevSecOps is a natural and required solution to the CD pipeline's bottleneck impact caused by various security issues in the past. The goal is to close the gap between IT and security without compromising on the speed of delivery. During all phases of the delivery process, silo thinking is replaced with improved communication and shared accountability for security tasks.

3 Disciplines of DevSecOps

Development

In this, new software applications are created by development teams. Custom, in-house applications created for a particular, specialized purpose are included. Here are the core functions of this discipline -

  • API-driven links that allow legacy systems and new services to talk to each other.
  • Apps that make use of open-source code to speed up development.
  • Agile models are used in modern development processes, which prioritize continuous improvement over sequential, waterfall-style steps.
  • New applications or features may introduce operational issues or security vulnerabilities that are costly and time-consuming to address if developers work in isolation without considering operations and security.

Operations

This comprises the methods to control various functionalities of the software throughout its life cycle. Here are the core functions of this discipline -

  • Tuning the software release system
  • Testing after updates and changes
  • Repairing defects
  • Monitoring system performance

In recent years, DevSecOps has gained great traction as a method to combine key operational principles with development cycles, with a focus on security. Siloed post-development activities can make it easier to spot and fix possible difficulties, but this method forces developers to go back and fix software bugs before moving on to new tasks.

Security

All the tools and techniques required to design software should also be resistant to attacks. It should be possible to identify and respond to faults (or breaches) as rapidly as possible.

Traditionally, application security was addressed after the development stage and that too by a completely different team – one that is not part of either the development or operations teams. The development process and reaction time were greatly affected thanks to this compartmentalized approach.

Even security tools were compartmentalized. Every application security test focused only on a particular application and its source code. This made it difficult for anyone to have a comprehensive perspective of security vulnerabilities across the firm or to understand any software risks in the production environment.

Advantages of the DevSecOps approach

Over the last decade, the IT infrastructure landscape has changed dramatically. Organizations wanting to prosper and grow through the use of innovative apps and services have reaped the benefits of flexible cloud computing platforms and shared storage.

While DevOps has made significant progress in terms of speed, scale, and functionality, they lack sufficient security. This led to the introduction of DevSecOps into the software development lifecycle to bring together development, operations, and security under one roof.

DevSecOps bring in a slew of benefits for an organization. Here are they -

  • Security teams will be able to move more quickly and with greater agility.
  • Improved team collaboration and communication.
  • More automated builds and quality assurance testing options.
  • Vulnerabilities in coding are identified early.
  • Team assets are freed up to work on high-value projects.

How does DevSecOps work?

Here is a typical workflow in a DevSecOps ecosystem -

  • 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 application is installed, and the system's security configurations are applied.
  • The freshly deployed application is next subjected to a test automation suite, which includes 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 active 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.

Conclusion

For any firm involved in application development and delivery, putting security on par with development and operations is a must. When DevSecOps and DevOps are combined, every developer and network administrator will focus on security while designing and deploying apps.

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