INTRODUCTION

DevSecOps is an approach that aims to integrate security practices into the traditional DevOps model. By embedding security into every phase of the DevOps cycle security is made a shared responsibility among the various teams in DevOps, rather than just the responsibility of the security testing team to catch security defects just before go-live.

Principally the idea of DevSecOps is to integrate a shift-left policy to security, placing it within the development cycle rather than executing it at the end, where security issues are by nature more expensive to fix and where there is only one shot for security testers to detect security issues before the product into production.

DevSecOps fosters this culture of continuous automated security testing and potential threat monitoring and requires consideration for security test not just from the testing team, but also developers and operations staff too. DevSecOps ensures that compliance with security standards and regulatory requirements is embedded into the development process. Automated checks and audits ensure that applications meet industry and organizational security standards, reducing the risk of non-compliance.

INTEGRATED TOOLS IN DEVSECOPS

DevSecOps requires a variety of tools to automate and manage security within the DevOps cycle, which include:

Static Application Security Testing (SAST) – These are tools that can be employed that directly analyse the source code for vulnerabilities (for example Fortify SAST, Veracode). The source code does not need to be executed to these tools to find vulnerabiliites.

Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) – These are tools that can be employed that analyse the actual running web applications for security vulnerabilities (for example WebInspect, OWASP ZAP Proxy, Burp Suite Professional).

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) – These are tools that provide real-time security monitoring and threat detection and response in production environments (for example Microsoft Sentinel, Splunk, IBM QRadar).

BENEFITS OF DEVSECOPS

· Allows security testing to be performed at each stage in the DevOps cycle, with the advantage of being able to catch and fixed security issues earlier, lessening the cost of issue remediation. In DevSecOps, teams get continuous feedback on security issues.

· It also means full scale security testing does not have to be left until the end, it is performed throughout the cycle, reducing time to live. Any issue, be it security or otherwise, is far cheaper to resolve when it is detected early, which is what DevSecOps aims to do from a security standpoint.

· Security is no longer the sole responsibility of the security team. Each team in the DevOps cycle will have a focus on security and, as a result, provides multiple sets of eyes checking for security issues at multiple stages.

· DevSecOps provides a security focus, responsibility and collaboration between multiple teams rather than just assuming all security defects will be caught by penetration testing towards the end of the project, and it can help ensure that applications and infrastructure meet regulatory and industry standards by automating compliance checks throughout both the development and deployment processes.

· DevSecOps encourages the use of Infrastructure as Code (IaC), which allows infrastructure such as servers, databases and networks to be defined and managed via code. This can make it easier to automate and secure infrastructure provisioning, ensuring consistency and reducing the likelihood of security misconfigurations.

· Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) pipelines are the backbone of DevOps, allowing teams to deploy code frequently and reliably. In DevSecOps, security tools are integrated into these pipelines, so that security checks (like code analysis, vulnerability scanning, and compliance checks) happen automatically before code is deployed to production.

CHALLENGES OF DEVSECOPS

· Integrating the right tools into existing DevOps pipelines can be complex. Setting up and configuring them correctly is likely to take time, expertise and a certain amount of trial and error.

· Security automation tools can generate a high number of false positives, which can overwhelm development teams and slow down the process. Evaluating the findings such tools generate still requires expertise in the team to separate the real issues against the false findings.

· The effective implementation of DevSecOps requires people who are experienced in development, operations and security. Finding the people with the right expertise may be tricky. Security training existing employees may be time consuming and costly.

CONCLUSION

DevSecOps equals the traditional DevOps process with security integrated at each point, ensuring that security is tested alongside more traditional forms of testing throughout the software development lifecycle. By automating security tasks, fostering collaboration, and embedding security early on, DevSecOps allows organizations to release software quickly and securely.

While it requires significant changes in culture, processes, and tools, the benefits of DevSecOps, including faster releases, improved security, and reduced costs, make it an essential practice for modern software development.

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