Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

It’s a nice Friday morning! You’ve closed two new high-value clients this week! You’ve made your weekend plans to spend some peaceful time with your family at a nearby luxury resort. 

You’re casually scrolling down the news section while having breakfast. And bam! Your phone starts getting flooded with calls, notifications and messages from your teammates. 

Your worst nightmare has come true! An undetected codebase vulnerability gave easy access to cybercriminals to an organisational application database and is now demanding ransom. And the news has spread like wildfire!

Phew!!!

Fortunately, this is just an imaginary situation. But this situation has become a reality for many companies who weren’t careful about embedding security in the early development phases of the application. 

So what can you do? DevSecOps is a great solution! 

How Traditional Security Structure Went Wrong In Digitization Era?

  • In the earlier application development era, discrete releases were generally practised.
  • Therefore, security teams naturally had a manual control point by the end stages of the SDLC for code review, thus, ensuring the developed application was free of major vulnerabilities. 
  • Even when DevOps principles were injected into the application development process, security reviews were scheduled in the latter stages of the SDLC. This was primarily because primitive security testing tools were not developer-friendly, unlike other enterprise release management tools. 
  • Developers require command-line security tools that can be automated and easily integrated within the existing process. 
  • Consequently, detecting security problems in the entire CI/CD pipeline at the mature stages wasn’t just expensive but time-consuming and strenuous. So patching was the preferred solution given the ever-evolving demands and pressure to deploy features and updates as fast as possible. 
  • Developments wanted to move at an accelerated pace, while security teams slowed things down to ensure quality. 
  • Additionally, the lack of collaborative culture between development and security due to different goals played a major role in undetected code vulnerability. 
  • Also, cybercrime attacks have evolved and increased at an exponential rate.

DevSecOps closes this gap by extending security into the CI/CD pipeline. Implementing DevSecOps principles has a direct positive impact since it helps manage these potentially devastating threats.

What Is DevSecOps?

Fast and secured application development. Sounds like an oxymoron? Not anymore with DevSecOps. 

DevSecOps is a technique or approach that emphasises active collaboration and the fact that IT security is the responsibility of everyone. It involves integrating security practices into your existing DevOps pipeline. 

The aim is to introduce security into all phases of the application development workflow. You’ve aren’t saving the crucial security assessments for the mature SDLC stages.

How To Implement DevSecOps In Your Organisation?

Cultural Adaptations

Adopt DevSecOps as a cultural transformation.

  • DevSecOps is a cultural change. It eliminates the siloed mindset and supports a collaborative work culture. 
  • Engage and implement using a clear and simple approach.
  • Highlight the business benefit, employee benefit, process efficiency and security benefits for your organisation. 

Inject security practices within your development workflow and not vice-versa

  • Modify your security practices to align with the development workflow. 
  • When you try to reframe your development technique to align with security practices, you negatively affect the speed and cadence of your processes. Ultimately delaying the deployment. 

Demonstrate that eliminating security bottlenecks can speed up the process.

Given the nature of working of the security teams, a natural hesitation exists when you try to implement collaboration with DevOps. Demonstrate using data, reports and roadmaps that security can keep pace with the agility and velocity of the process. 

You can use various tools such as enterprise release management tools, TDM tools, etc., to ensure agility in the entire SDLC lifecycle. 

Move From Monitoring To Active Vulnerability identification. 

  • Once the security team starts collaborating with the development workflow, consider expanding the role of the security and quality assurance professionals. 
  • From monitoring and visibility move to active detection of vulnerabilities in code. Through this process, the security team can slowly become the best companion of the development team. 

Technical Modifications

Welcome Automated Testing With Open Arms

  • DevSecOps builds on the strengths of DevOps. Therefore you can’t forget to implement automated testing. It helps in keeping the DevOps model in connection. 
  • It enables rapid delivery and superior quality of software in the pipeline. 
  • It also provides a platform for consistent monitoring and finding errors constantly.
  • It also plays a pivotal role in combating cyber-attacks as it helps overcome common code vulnerabilities and patches in the early stages. 

Deliver application codebase in small, frequent releases through Agile Methodology

  • DevSecOps and Agile are two exclusive terms. While DevSecops is a cultural change involving various strategies, tools and techniques, Agile is a method of executing the entire deployment process. 
  • In fact, Agile methodology should be a part of DevSecOps. Integrating Agile within the DevSecOps structure helps deliver code faster and ensures more frequent product releases.
  • The agile methodology is applicable for application testing, quality assurance, and production support, whereas DevsecOps offers tools to facilitate agile adaptation. 

Financial Adaptations

Restructure the security budget to facilitate the DevSecOps workflow 

Let’s face the fact. You’ll need to use specific tools, methodology and automation in your development and security processes to make DevSecOps a success. 

Therefore restructure your budget. Think of the places where you need to redirect your budget. To increase your speed, quality and ultimately, ROI, you need to strategise and restructure the existing budgeting plan.

Conclusion

DevSecOps is the future of the application development paradigm. Sooner or later, you’ll need to adapt to these practices to stay afloat in the industry. Collaborate with the best DevSecOps professionals and get an edge over your competitors. 

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