Unlocking the Power of DevSecOps

Companies are churning out new software applications almost in a race, never to be left lagging. However, such rapid action also involves the critical question of security. Here comes DevSecOps, a strong move toward quickly building secure and reliable software.

What Is DevSecOps?

Now, let us get you started on what DevSecOps precisely is: short for Development, Security, and Operations. These shortened forms are combined to refer to the methodology that implants security throughout a software development lifecycle (SDLC). Traditionally, security was often an afterthought, bolted onto the development process at later stages. DevSecOps flips this script, making security a shared responsibility from the very beginning.

Active principles guiding practices of DevSecOps include:

• Shift-Left Security: This is about embedding security considerations right from the initial design and coding phases. This ensures that vulnerabilities are caught early, not further down the cycle when rework may be more costly.
• Automation: The security processes need automation to smoothen the flow of DevSecOps. Security scanning, code reviews, and vulnerability assessments can be automated to ensure efficiency and consistency.
• Continuous Monitoring: Security threats keep evolving, and one needs to be ever-vigilant. DevSecOps practices emphasize continuous systems and application monitoring to detect and bridge any security gaps before the bad guys can exploit them.
• Collaboration: Effective DevSecOps requires seamless collaboration between development, security, and operation teams. Knowledge is best shared this way, and silos come down as security ownership culture permeates all departments.

Why DevSecOps Matters?

Adopting DevSecOpscan bring numerous business benefits, including:

• Improved Security: Integrating security from the ground up during development helps build applications resilient against cyber-attacks. This proactive approach will reduce the risk related to data breaches and other security incidents by many folds.
• Improved Compliance: Heavy industries have set stringent data security regulations. DevSecOps ensures that the software applications adhere to such regulations and other related standards put in by the industry. This reduces the risk of coming under heavy fines or reputational damage.
• Faster Time to Market: Automation in security processes and smoother collaboration result in quicker development cycles. As a result, businesses can quickly launch secure and reliable software products, thereby gaining a competitive edge.
• Cost Savings: Finding and patching security vulnerabilities early on in the development cycle saves a lot of money compared to patching them after they go into production. DevSecOps helps organizations reduce rework and remediation costs.
• Impact on Website SEO: Although not an immediate benefit, DevSecOps practices create an environment which could lead to improved website SEO. More reliable and secure websites with better performance have higher search result rankings.

Exploring DevSecOps Tools

Now that you understand the “why” behind DevSecOps let’s dive into some of the top tools fueling this powerful methodology:

• GitHub: This foundational element of a DevSecOps workflow is the basis for version control. GitHub manages code management through tracking changes, branching, and collaboration by developers, with many nifty features thrown in. Security features include code reviews and vulnerability scanning, further enhancing its key role in secure development.
• Ansible: Ansible is one of those go-to tools when it comes to the automation of infrastructure provisioning, configuration management, or application deployment. Automation of such tasks by DevSecOps teams smoothes their software delivery pipeline and ensures consistent security configurations across environments.
• Jenkins Server: This is the most utilized open-source tool and Continuous Integration Continuous Delivery CI/CD server in DevSecOps pipelines. Jenkins automatically builds, tests, and deploys software, thus enabling quicker feedback loops and faster releases. There are security plugins that integrate seamlessly with Jenkins, thus easily allowing the insertion of security checks into the CI/CD pipeline.
• Kubernetes: Kubernetes is the de facto standard for containerized application orchestration. It controls the deployment, scaling, and networking of the containerized application, thus offering an efficient, scalable infrastructure for DevSecOps deployments.
• Nessus: This is one of the powerful vulnerability scanners, so it can be assumed that this will be one of the critical tools that a DevSecOps team will need. Nessus performs scans on applications and infrastructure for known vulnerabilities, highlighting areas that must be addressed for security purposes.
• Splunk: Security monitoring is a critical component of DevSecOps. Splunk is excellent at real-time data analysis, collecting, indexing, and visualizing machine data produced by security tools and applications. It helps DevSecOps teams monitor activities across the system, understand real-time threats, and swiftly act upon security incidents.
• SonarQube: SonarQube is a renowned tool for continuous code inspection and quality assurance. It performs static code analysis and helps detect bugs, security vulnerabilities, and potential code smells. Integrating SonarQube into the DevSecOps pipeline thus enables developers to identify issues in the code and fix them during the earliest phase of the development cycle.

Supercharge Your Business Today

DevSecOps processes let organisations create much stronger security postures with reduced time-to-market, thus giving them a competitive advantage.

Ready to unlock the full force of DevSecOps and build secure, future-proof software? Primal is a multi-award-winning online marketing agency based in Bangkok that can help. Our team of DevSecOps experts can guide you through the implementation process, advise you on the right tool for your particular need, and make sure your software development lifecycle is secure and efficient. 

Please feel free to contact us today to discuss your DevSecOps journey and to start building more robust and reliable software.