DevSecOps
Introduction
In the last decade, the IT infrastructure has enormously evolved. But, we can’t see such a thing for the majority of security and compliance monitoring tools.
Also, cybercrime attacks have increased at such an alarming rate. Everyday, new tactics or techniques are being discovered by hackers to disrupt a company’s systems, to obtain critical data or to steal money. Most often, they will be looking into the vulnerabilities in code to exploit and carry out their attacks. It’s seen that, one exploitation of vulnerability or human error causing a data breach; leads to an average cost of $4.35 million. According to some experts, these breaches could cost a total of $10.5 trillion by 2025.
Implementation of DevSecOps has a direct positive impact, as this will help us in preventing data breaches to a very extent.
What is DevSecOps?
DevSecOps is a methodology which involves integrating security into SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle) by ensuring security is built into the application from the start itself. DevSecOps stands for development, security and operations. In DevSecOps, IT security is approached with an “everyone is responsible for security” mindset.
Introduction of security checks at earlier stages of SDLC will help the developers to fix security related fixes in an easier way.
Before the introduction of DevSecOps, products’ security checks were done at the final stages of SDLC. Focus was mainly on application development and security was given less importance. So, when the Engineers do the security checks, the product would have passed all other quality checks and will be fully developed. Because of this, at this stage, it would be very difficult rewriting the entire code due to any security threats.
By the introduction of DevSecOps, security will be monitored from the start of SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle) itself.
Difference between DevOps and DevSecOps :
In DevOps, Developers and IT/operations specialists work together as one team. The aim is to do the automation, continuous integration and continuous delivery; to increase efficiency and to reduce errors resulting in high-quality software to be delivered at the end of the processes at a faster rate. So, in DevOps, even though security is integrated into the development process, it’s not the primary focus.
In DevSecOps, Developers and IT/operations specialists work together with the Security staff to meet the shared goals in DevOps and to add security to the process. So, DevSecOps includes the security testing, risk assessments, and compliance checks throughout SDLC. This makes it simpler, faster and more efficient to make security changes from the start to the end of SDLC.
Benefits Of DevSecOps :
1. Improved Security :- As security is integrated to every phase of SDLC, it helps to identify and address security issues at a very earlier stage in the development process. This reduces the risk of security breaches and other security related incidents to the maximum.
2. Better Collaboration :- Ensures collaboration between
development, operations, and security teams. So, by working together, they can share knowledge and expertise; thereby identifying potential issues and resolving problems more quickly & efficiently.
3. Faster Time-to-Market :- Many tasks involved in the software development process, such as testing, deployment, and monitoring are automated. So, this will ensure the faster delivery of a high quality software.
4. Improved Compliance :- Embodies security and compliance checks throughout SDLC. Hence, DevSecOps ensures that all the necessary security and compliance requirements are met.
5. Increased Agility :- As many tasks and processes are automated, all the teams can quickly & easily adapt to new requirements and deliver software updates more frequently. So, DevSecOps makes organizations respond to changing business and market conditions in a quicker way.
6. Saves cost :- Development costs will get reduced because the security threats can be identified earlier in the SDLC process rather than at the end which is time consuming and costlier.
7. Can be incorporated in modern cloud environments seamlessly.
DevSecOps Best Practices :
Vulnerability Scanning / Automate Security Testing :-
The basic or first step for securing products is to scan our code for vulnerabilities. So, integrating ‘Vulnerability Scanning’ into our CI/CD process is the first step for DevSecOps implementation.
The range of tools to do this are :-
a) Software Composition Analysis (SCA) – Tools perform automated scanning of the code base (of the application), including containers and registries in order to identify all the open source components, their license compliance data and
in case of any security vulnerabilities. Advanced SCA tools prioritize the identified vulnerabilities on the basis of risk and automatically take care of them.
b) Static Application Security Testing (SAST) – This is also known as White Box Testing. This helps developers to detect security issues in their code itself. In this, code is scanned before compilation, so it’s introduced in the very early development stage itself.
c) Interactive Application Security Testing (IAST) – It can be easily integrated into the CI/CD pipeline. In real time, IAST uses agents and sensors to detect vulnerabilities in running applications. So, problematic lines of code can be identified by IAST; soon the developer will be notified for immediate remediation.
d) Dynamic application security testing (DAST) – This is a type of Black Box Testing. In this, by simulating external attacks on the running application, testing is conducted for security vulnerabilities.
Secure Coding Practice :-
If secure coding is not practiced, it can lead to multiple software security risks, such as confidential data breach of an organization. So, it’s important to encourage developers to keep secure coding practices, such as input validation, output encoding, and using parameterized queries.
Shift Security Left :-
This means incorporating security into earlier stages of SDLC instead of waiting until final stages. So, the advantage is that the potential vulnerabilities can be identified and work on resolving them sooner. The earlier any bugs are identified, the cheaper it will be for us to fix them.
People, Process and Technology :-
a) People – The senior management people have to be convinced to follow DevSecOps methodology considering the fact that intense and high-profile data breaches happen every time because of inefficient security. Security specialists play a vital role in making our DevSecOps right.
b) Process – Consists of many components. Workflow standardization and documentation are the most important ones. Different teams in an organization may follow different processes. DevSecOps asks for making commonly agreed-upon processes and their execution to strengthen the security in SDLC.
c) Technology – Makes people to effectively execute DevSecOps methodology. Technologies used in DevSecOps include ‘Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) tools, Configuration management tools, Security information and event management (SIEM) systems, Containerization tools, Infrastructure as code (IaC) tools, Application security testing tools and Identity and access management (IAM) tools.
Transforming From DevOps to DevSecOps :
Implementation of DevSecOps requires us to perform a broad evaluation of our existing IT resources and DevOps processes. Then, we have to build a holistic strategy that integrates stronger security into all the processes.
For a successful transition from DevOps to DevSecOps we have to :
Introduce new ideas incrementally.
Make sure that our objectives are clear and plan carefully.
Get the developers trained in secure coding.
Educate all teams in the transition process to prioritize security in the processes.
Evaluate progress by measuring success.
Make sure to select and use the right tools for the team and organization.
How to implement DevSecOps?
Implementing DevSecOps is an elaborate process. There are no concrete sequential steps in the implementation. However, the following processes are usually present and hence the below steps can be considered :
Put developers first :- The security tools and solutions we introduce should be easy to understand and easy to use for developers. They should be easily integrated into developers’ existing workflow, hence making sure that there’s no switch to a different tool so as to perform scans and remediation. If this is taken care of, developers will be ready to adopt it and security will shift left.
Embrace automation :- As in every process, automation removes the need to perform repetitive and time-consuming works manually. Automation enables prioritization and reduces false positives. It accelerates the scanning and remediation of vulnerabilities. It also enhances accuracy. This will help to achieve the main objective of DevSecOps, ie. to integrate security directly into every stage of SDLC.
Prioritizing vulnerabilities :- A major challenge that we face with modern security scanning is that it will generate too many alerts of vulnerabilities for teams to handle. So, this will lead to neglect of alerts as they’re impossible to fix them all. So, this requires a tool that can prioritize the vulnerabilities scanned. With this, we’ll generate very less false positives in our security scans. So, we’ll get fewer alerts and those we get will be more accurate and deserve our attention.
Share responsibilities and encourage communication :- In DevSecOps, IT security is approached with an “everyone is responsible for security” mindset. So, developers must understand that security scanning is no longer the responsibility of security team members (at the end of SDLC). It’s integrated into SDLC from the start itself. We can start to change the culture gradually like by encouraging security checks in the code review stage itself. Implementation of CI/CD pipelines will build a good and organized workflow that includes security from the very first lines of code itself.
Foster transparency :- Teams should communicate more so they’re all aware of most of the issues that need to get fixed. By implementing DevSecOps, different teams, development, and operations teams communicate continuously with the security team thus helping in getting rid of the isolation of the security team from SDLC’s earlier stages. This encourages more transparency and visibility in the processes.
Encourage ongoing learning :- Educate the teams so that they all understand the DevSecOps philosophy and have the right tools to implement the processes with shared goals.
So, the teams have to keep learning about all the latest updates in code, software, and applications continuously.
Concluding …
In addition to all these, there are other important aspects that should be considered in the implementation strategy like monitoring, log analysis, and alerting. And when security is fully integrated with the CI/CD pipeline, DevOps and DevSecOps become one.
DevSecOps revolutionizes the way in which organizations handle security. There are many technical as well as business benefits that organizations can have by implementing DevSecOps. Even though we’ll face some challenges at the start, implementing DevSecOps can do so much for the organization in the long run.