DevSecOps: shift left and put security first

While IT tools have advanced significantly, those that help with compliance monitoring haven't kept up. That means security engineers can't test code at the same rate developers can build it. With the rise in open source software, vulnerabilities are even more widespread and cybercrime is on the rise too.

Without adequate measures, your organisation is more at risk of serious breaches. Implementing DevSecOps has a direct impact, making security a priority from the outset and ensuring developers have the motivation and training they need to code more securely in the first place.

DevSecOps is a natural evolution of DevOps thinking. They’ve got lots in common: both require a collaborative culture, embrace automation to speed things up, and monitor data to learn and drive improvements.

But while DevOps focuses more specifically on deploying updates quickly without prioritising threat prevention, DevSecOps addresses security at the outset. It adds some new practices to the mix too, such as incident management, common weaknesses enumeration, automated security testing, and threat modelling.

Key DevSecOps practices revolve around people, processes, and technology. For your people, you need to invest in skills and knowledge building to encourage a security-first mindset across the organisation – perhaps by installing a security champion on each team – and a more collaborative approach.

Implementing common processes around automation, shifting left with security so it’s embedded as early as possible in the SDLC, and setting and maintaining strict coding standards are all essential for DevSecOps.

Last but not least, the key technology practices underpinning DevSecOps tools are automation – to trigger security tests, for example – testing itself (that might be a mix of static, dynamic, and interaction application testing), and auditing to makes sure your assets meet an internally certified security level.

While no two DevSecOps implementations look the same, there are a number of common processes that will probably be involved to get you on the right track. The key steps we recommend are:

1. Plan – Your plan should set out all the security actions that need to take place across the pipeline, with metrics built-in to help team members take the necessary steps to meet requirements.

2. Develop – Take a look at your existing development approach and research widely to see how it compares to other organisations’. Invest time and resources in training people up and committing to specific practices and code review systems so everyone is on the same page.

3. Build – Introduce automated build tools to speed things up. These tools can help detect vulnerable libraries, replacing them with new ones as you build. Make sure developers don't have to go out of their way to run them or triage results.

4. Test – Incorporating a set of tests into a reliable framework ensures that code and security standards are aligned and vulnerabilities are caught early. Testing practices should include front-end, back-end, database, API, and passive.

5. Deploy – Consistency and speed are key when it comes to deployment, and thanks to infrastructure-as-code (IaC) tools, you can achieve both. These tools automate your deployment process, performing the necessary audits and configurations to secure your infrastructure.

6. Operate – Operations teams keep tabs on software and ensure necessary upgrades occur with minimal disruption. DevSecOps makes their lives easier by removing human error from the equation. By utilising IaC tools, they can secure and update infrastructure with ease.

7. Monitor – Speed and efficiency are nothing without constant and continuous monitoring. There are helpful tools to keep on top of this, flagging irregularities to prevent major breaches before they occur.

8. Scale – Make the most of virtualisation tools and cloud deployment to scale your IT and security frameworks rather than wasting money on large data centres and clunky Infrastructure. That way, in the case of a serious threat or breach, you'll be better positioned to manage and resolve it.