Organizations in the current software development ecosystem aim to push the boundaries of application development and provision high-quality systems in record time. This has been made possible through the introduction of DevOps, which seeks to join together, development and operations to fasten the process. However, with the increase in cyber threats, there arose a necessity of assimilating security even better into this process. And that led to the rise of DevSecOps. While in each methodology there is a focus on improving overall performance, collaboration as well as automation, what makes them different is the approach of security.
In this blog post, we are going to examine these two methodologies and highlight the differences between them. Further, we will discuss DevSecOps concepts such as automated security tools, and integration into CI/CD pipelines. Also, we will discuss about the ways of doing it, and why it is advisable to implement DevSecOps Over DevOps.
What is DevOps?
In simple terms, DevOps is such a framework that results in the quick and reliable deployment of software. By means of the collaboration of development (Dev) and operations (Ops) teams. The vital principle of DevOps is getting rid of the separation, which has always existed between these two structures. This improves their responsibility for building, testing, and deploying applications.
Key principles of DevOps are as follows:
- Continuous Integration (CI): This process includes the regular merging of code changes into a shared repository. This is accompanied by automatic testing to catch and fix problems promptly.
- Continuous Delivery (CD): The provision of the target software can be achieved within the minimum amount of time required through the use of suitable automated means in releasing the software.
- Automation: Tasks such as testing and deployments that are often repetitive are done by software to ensure that the development cycle is shortened.
Nevertheless, while DevOps does shorten the timeframe for activities, this transition does not tend to improve security risk concerns. Testing is usually pushed to the end of development. Many defects might be found too close to when the production release is going to be done. Hence increasing the possibility of encountering serious problems in production.
Introduction to DevSecOps
As with everything in the technology world, DevSecOps is better because it provides the best of both worlds in adopting the principles of designing security early within the Software Development Lifecycle. It is the Development Operations and Security management.
DevSecOps refers to the DevOps practice wherein security is given every consideration in every phase of the development process. It now ‘shifts security left’ – meaning that rather than being the function of the security team alone, security gets a sense of communal ownership by developers, operations, and security teams from day one. This helps to ensure that such vulnerabilities are discovered and fixed as soon as possible. Thus avoiding the possibility of security risks in the delivered product.
In the DevSecOps model, security is embedded throughout the development cycle, instead of being a separate step. Major aspects of DevSecOps include:
- Security as Code: Security policies, security tests, and security audits are treated in the same manner that other software and infrastructure are treated. Or rather, they are automated into the cloud.
- Shift Left Security: Validation of security activities and vulnerability assessment are done frequently throughout the development cycle rather than being limited to only the late phases of development.
- Security Testing in Development: Simple security tools are added to the continuous integration and continuous delivery pipeline so that simple automated security tests are also executed together with other automated tests.
DevOps Vs DevSecOps
1. Security Focus
- DevOps: Much of the security work in software development projects seems to be done at the end of the development process in a dedicated phase. This is why the chances of spotting security problems are slim until much later in the process. Releasing timelines may be affected or may require expensive repairs.
- DevSecOps: Security is embedded within all phases of a project lifecycle. Activities such as security testing and risk assessment are performed simultaneously with the development process to enable early detection of potential problems.
2. Team Responsibilities
- DevOps: The role of writing codes, developing test cases, and deploying the applications lies with the development and operations teams. Security is typically left to the security department, which does not involve itself with the daily activities of development.
- DevSecOps: Developers, operations, and security teams all contribute to each phase of the development lifecycle. It makes sure that security is integrated within the entire breadth of the life cycle. Security becomes everyone’s responsibility hence a shift from responding to threats to actively looking for them.
3. Automated Security Scan Tools
- DevOps: The emphasis is usually on the automation of the development, testing, and deployment phases. This includes tools like Jenkins, Docker, Kubernetes, and Terraform. They may need to have a separate phase where security tools are used more like in a project schedule.
- DevSecOps – Security automation expands the scope of DevOps practice. Continuous security testing, application security self-check, vulnerability checking, and regulatory requirements verification are performed automatically by tools such as Snyk, OWASP ZAP, and Aqua Security within the development process.
4. Compliance and risk management
- DevOps: Compliance and risk management is usually complex and intensely manual and executed out of the main development workflow. This may result in security or other related compliance obligations being postponed for unnecessarily long periods, which is not efficient.
- DevSecOps: Compliance validation activities through checks and risk analysis are automated within the development timeline. Consequently, there is a reduced risk of security and compliance breaches. Any addition or modification of the code made is subject to the stipulated security policies and regulations.
Integrating security practices in the CI/CD pipeline
Enforcing security at every step of the CI/CD pipeline is one of the biggest advantages of DevSecOps because it enables the development team to incorporate security within the CI/CD pipeline.
Here’s how to integrate security into your CI/CD pipeline:
- Static Application Security Testing (SAST): Early in the development process, particular static code analysis tools such as Snyk and SonarQube should be used to analyze the code for any security flaws.
- Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST): Implementation of deep security testing of the applications through the use of dynamic testing tools like OWASP ZAP to find weaknesses in the running applications.
- Container Security: Containerization is slowly gaining traction thus it’s very important to embed container security scanning tools such as Aqua Security and Docker Bench into your pipeline.
Automated Checks for Compliance
DevSecOps not only addresses security risks but also assists in managing compliance with requirements of various standards and regulations (e.g. GDPR, HIPAA, PCI-DSS). You can check continuous compliance violations with the help of automated compliance tools throughout the whole CI/CD pipeline.
Automated compliance checks include:
Policy-as-Code: Creating security and compliance policies in the form of code to add them during the pipeline’s processes. Also to maintain constant compliance.
Security of Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Applying scanning or other strategies to IaC templates (Terraform, CloudFormation, etc.) to find fully or partially non-compliant or misconfigured security aspects.
There are tools available like Puppet, Chef InSpec, and HashiCorp Sentinel which can perform all the checks mentioned above automatedly.
Best Practices for DevSecOps
- Security moves to the Left: Avoid waiting to discover whether to add security at the end of development. It is less expensive to secure an application at the stage of development than once it is already deployed.
- Continuous Monitoring: Continuously track your environments, applications, and source code repositories for any potential new risks or vulnerabilities.
- Automation: Security testing, compliance testing, and vulnerability assessment processes must be fully automated. Thus every build can be secured with fast and efficient security checks.
- Raise Security Awareness: Introduce a security-conscious cultural dimension that educates developers, operations, and security about current threats faced and best practices learned in the security domain.
- Use Secure Coding Practices: Support security strategies such as secure coding techniques, code reviews, and the use of the principle of least privilege to limit potential points of attack.
Benefits of DevSecOps Over DevOps
- Proactive Security: The next evolution of development is to integrate security at every step of the application development life cycle. This allows security issues to be caught earlier and therefore saves time and money in the future caring for such issues.
- Reduced Risk: Through the aid of monitoring and security checks that are automated, the production of the application will have fewer security risks. Thus security problems will not occur after the application has been deployed.
- Faster Delivery: In DevSecOps, Automated security and compliance controls are embedded. So that there is speed in the deployment and security without affecting the pace of the CI/CD process.
- Team Integration: As DevSecOps incorporates security in all aspects of project management, it changes the organizational culture. This makes security a task that is shared rather than delegated.
Conclusion
Both DevOps and DevSecOps are geared towards the fast pace of software development. DevSecOps places security as the center of focus in the process as opposed to inclusively looking at it in the final phase of software delivery. In most instances in DevOps in Web Application Development, security comes in very late in the lifecycle consequently increasing the chances of such vulnerabilities remaining undetected. As for DevSecops, security is not implemented as an afterthought instead, security is implemented and managed continuously from operation to operation.
With the current shifts in cyber threats, it is effective to adopt the principles of DevSecOps practices. Applications will always be developed and delivered within a short period without compromising on relevant security aspects. Organizations wishing to improve their security levels without losing all the advantages of DevOps must change to DevSecOps to enjoy more advanced security and a healthy software development lifecycle.
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