DevSecOps has been touted as the best way to mitigate the security risks of an agile software release environment. Once everyone involved is aligned and educated in best practices, the DevSecOps model helps engineers tackle security issues before they arise, since it ensures that reliability is built into products during the development cycle.
The issue is that DevSecOps is markedly different from traditional development approaches. It wasn’t long ago that security teams operated independently, conducting code reviews once developers had finished their work. Under that model, silos formed, and issues multiplied.
Moving on to a DevSecOps model can be seriously challenging, as it involves rethinking entire processes and changing the way people have always done their jobs. Here are three keys to making the switch successfully.
Embrace cross-functional teams and infrastructure
These days, enterprise apps can be a confusing web of microservices, cloud containers, and on-premise resources. Developers draw data and expertise from several sources within their organization and rapidly deploy solutions.
In such an environment, maintaining a centralized security team doesn’t make sense. Security becomes a hurdle in these situations. If an organization struggles to maintain security and tick compliance boxes, chances are that security and development functions are excessively siloed away from each other.
The first step is to embed security into development teams, while embracing automation. Every development sprint must simultaneously address feature enhancements, compliance, and security. Staffing teams with well-rounded full-stack engineers is also essential.
The idea behind this approach is to make developers responsible for product security while simultaneously empowering them to do so efficiently. The right tools and processes can effectively remove any friction between development and security objectives. For instance, using code templates pre-validated for security along with automated security testing processes can help developers understand security risks and do not impose any additional development hurdles.
The type of tools an organization uses is also important. Thanks to developers drawing from several sources and using a range of microservices and cloud containers in code, security stack design choices are important. Security tools must be scalable and fit seamlessly into existing architecture and workflows.
Akeyless, for one, offers an SaaS-based approach to centralize secret and key management. Using API queries to dynamically inject credentials into containerized source code, enterprises can retain their architecture while embedding secret management every step of the way. Automating key creation and one-time access passwords further removes any friction between security and development.
In essence, by automating security, enterprises can base all development within a secure framework. The result is a development team that builds secure products from the ground up, instead of adding security as an afterthought.
Automate CI/CD pipelines
Automation extends beyond security use cases. Enterprises must embrace it within CI/CD pipeline management to further remove any friction their developers face. In this sense, pipeline automation also bolsters DevSecOps adoption.
Developers have to release code frequently to ensure products can compete in the marketplace these days. Manual CI/CD processes cannot keep pace with release frequency. In addition, expecting a manual process to validate security in a fast-paced environment is unrealistic.
Security in the app development pipeline goes beyond ensuring machine identity secrets are being properly managed. Engineers need customizable environments with security seamlessly blended into them. Transferring code between environments is a potential security risk, since environment configurations can break code and limit necessary access.
In short, the pipeline is a complex web of processes running simultaneously. Add to this customized developer needs, and automation is the only solution. A product such as Semaphore removes friction between developers and enterprise security needs by pre-validating environments and containers for security.
For instance, developers can build and test code in clean virtual machines before transferring code securely to IST or UAT environments. They can configure resource power for each job. Meanwhile, environments are fully secured thanks to OpenId verification at the job level, ensuring the right services and users receive access.
Developers are thus free to experiment and customize their code with security running in the background. To realize the full potential of DevSecOps, security teams must also configure environment variables to protect sensitive data.
Defining user contexts also limits unauthorized access. For example, developers often use dummy production IDs in dev environments to validate outputs. However, these IDs must be restricted and offered access contextually, instead of receiving the same access configurations by default across all environments.
Lastly, audit logging is much easier when relying on automation. Security teams can review logs and communicate potential issues to development teams easily.
Prioritize security from the beginning
DevSecOps is a collaborative effort. While security and development teams must work together, collaboration often extends across industries. DevSecOps is rapidly evolving, and security postures can become obsolete quickly.
To ensure robust operations, enterprises must encourage their teams to leverage industry best practices and use open source libraries to quickly enhance code. For instance, Netflix’s open-source Hystrix library can help teams quickly improve fault tolerance within code releases.
Traditional release approaches have frowned upon open-source libraries. However, given how DevSecOps changes frequently, best practices often emerge from open source. Customizing open source APIs and using pre-existing microservice templates helps enterprises install security from the ground up.
The result is a product that embeds security into everything and isn’t exposed to the disadvantages of security being added by developers as an afterthought.
DevSecOps is the way forward
DevSecOps is the way forward for all enterprises. However, installing this culture is trickier than it looks on the surface. The three keys highlighted in this article will help enterprises implement DevSecOps and eliminate any silos between development and security.
