Progressive DevSecOps with Code-Regulations and Automation

A well-known practice-changing business detrimentally is conducting security checks on products towards the completion of the development life cycle (SDLC). Adherences are thus made very late into the method, and when there is no pressure for fast deployment, this model may very well work for most sections. However, in modern business practices, product deployments and feature upgrades occur more rapidly, as the focus has shifted towards Rapid Application Development (RAD) and deployment.

This requires the practice of DevSecOps, which connects development and operations teams with the security teams, instead of siloed procedures that induce a divide between all these teams/departments.

The whole idea of a DevOps model depends on enhanced visibility and collaboration between interconnected departments inside any company. With the new and advanced culture of adopting DevOps into organizations, synergizing all parallels until a products’ successful release, becomes necessary for any modern team structure. Hence, DevSecOps automation performs an important role in delivering development, security, and operations together.

There are several key things to notice when attempting to adopt DevSecOps as part of core development:

Planning

Imagine that an institution, say XYZ, has well-defined roles and trained professionals working on their latest product. When developer ‘A’ wrote their code, they passed it through the pipeline to the succeeding phase, and it was driven through till the final stages of development. But, when the product got into production, the build fails and various errors pop up, and the security team attempts to track them down. They ultimately find out that the problem has to do with the source code from ‘A’, and it requires to be changed. Unfortunately, A has jumped on from the module or the project itself. Now, the security team will have to wait around half of the development timeline to get the glitches fixed, in order for them to test it again. This becomes a painfully long method if there are other such security touch-ups to be made somewhere else. Now, XYZ has to rethink its methodology in terms of software development.

This kind of situation has forced software teams and companies to reassess their security testing methods. This sort of reassessment of earlier security solutions is now seen as the SHIFT-LEFT method in DevOps. Including security tests at each phase of development, and enforcing clear code tests from the ground up, can alter the complete process flow inside an organization.

During the planning phase, the part of people inside the company should not be overlooked. DevOps is a shift of mentality, and thus everyone should be on board with the new order of working while stressing the impact that it can generate.

Automation

Rapid testing can be implemented easily when it is done through automation. Through a DevOps Maturity Assessment Model, an institution can learn if they are ready to develop and run automated workflows. The final outcome of successful DevOps is automating every predefined step, to the time that most of the routine actions have been automated.

Automated source code review –

As we were discussing earlier with company XYZ, the operations and security team could be dealing with risks as critical as an SQL injection at the source code. To place an Automated source code review system in place, the ideal solution is to develop an automation tool from the start. With every iteration, the model will develop accuracy, and the testing will be safer, as well as proprietary.

However, with a lack of time and resources, companies can also opt for the numerous open-source libraries through apps that have been doing well.

With Automation in place, each error, or build fail will get reported. The reports can help alleviate these faults early on, hence checking the aforesaid problem of late security measures. This will assure that the bugs get fixed before they become exposed to the public.

Vulnerability management –

Vulnerability management should be the origin of the processes for security in DevOps. A vulnerability scan can be operated at every major point during development, and they will generate statements so that the whole team will be notified of the precautions and the necessary steps that are taken to assure security.

Vulnerability scanning will support practices such as SAST (Static Application Secure Testing) and DAST (Dynamic Application Secure Testing), with pre-commit tools and bug tracking facilitations. These can be strained out for the developers and can be distributed to all departments to keep with the conventions.

As an integral part of the CI/CD process, the vulnerability tests can get the workflows better with the most limited backtracking, and product rollbacks, doing the job easier for the ops team as well as the developers.

Tools and Resources

Whether it be test automation tools, or security administration, dev, and ops security must have consent on which tools they must use. While proprietary tools enhance security, open-source applications can improve productivity, and save time and money.

Every security technology will have its own set of weaknesses and powers. Recognizing them and aligning them to the business focuses and goals will the most critical aspect in choosing them.

Experts advice that there should be a secret management system to preserve microservices and document credentials, API keys, and other secure data. The secret management tool must be shared with the complete codebase.

On top of that, security problems can emerge from unseemly places such as from assets and decks distributed from other departments inside the companies. Therefore, monitoring assets is also a precautious effort that requires to be taken by the security teams.

Code Level Security

Implementing secure coding is the SHIFT- LEFT method that has been modifying the way organizations worked in the past. Secure coding methods and moving away from the classical waterfall model. SAST and DAST will take care of the low-hanging fruits in words of threats, during development and get the code safe for the production environment. As a result, there will be lesser problems to run into for deployment, and wards off any instances of security compromise, dangerous public exposure.

Compliances to regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of the EU, and adhering to the OWASP Security Guidelines there will be a notified step in the culture difference.

Besides the own code hazards, there are code dependencies risks, that come at the source code level. Take special care to evade discarded or vulnerable modules through coding. Third part coding languages also come up with a group of security risks. Implement software code analysis to mitigate these issues from the start.

External Threats

External security risks are mainly dependent on how a company views its infrastructure. Progressing towards a DevOps Threat Modeler, and additional advanced DevSecOps practices, companies require to map out security concerns and be careful about how they handle everything, including the cloud architecture.

Containerization and orchestration can work as an additional layer of insulation, as external attackers can only access hidden services behind proxies, and not specific containers. Orchestration tools and service meshes allow role-based configurations that will preserve data and accessibility.

The more beneficial technological developments in the industry have birthed IaC (Infrastructure-as-a-Code), which will concentrate on various aspects of cloud management, that will introduce security at its peripherals.

Cloud security will concentrate on patching servers against attacks, looking at Docker images, cloud workload protection, and other contextually relevant activities.

The DevSecOps team require to prepare to face any security threats so that the businesses do not lose face in the event of a security violation. Several examples of these types of attacks in recent events make Security all the more important.

Security cannot generate beyond the doorway anymore and is needed to be injected into each part of the development pipeline.

Considering Rapid Application Development (RAD) and rapid Deployment have become a requisite requirement in the present scenario, security loopholes can only be established with rapid testing and automated security tools. Since there was no special focus on agile approaches or faster production, it was not a high impediment. However, security checks can no longer be regarded as the endpoint.

Forerunners in the industry stress this point, when they assume that the people on the security side and development side should not be surrendering things over the wall at each other. DevSecOps connects the two teams together to deliver optimal performance and stable deployments.

TestUnity has helped a lot of our clients in discovering the ideal security approach in concordance with the latest DevSecOps methods. We know the ins- and -outs of Enterprise Security, with professionals that fall below the ‘elite’ category for the skills needed to become the world’s leading DevOps engineers. We have the tools, the industry experience, and the expertise required to vaccinate your organization against all security threats – the DevOps way.

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