What is DevSecOps?
DevSecOps stands for Development, Security, and Operations. The philosophy of DevSecOps is that everyone is responsible for security, with the goal of implementing security decisions and actions at the same scope and pace as development and operations.
Every DevOps-enabled company should strive to adopt a DevSecOps mentality, bringing people of all skill levels and across all technological disciplines to a greater degree of security competence. A DevSecOps architecture that utilizes DevSecOps technologies guarantees security is integrated into apps rather than being tacked on hastily later, from testing for possible security vulnerabilities to creating business-driven security services.
We experience continuous integration where the cost of compliance is lowered and software is produced and deployed quicker by ensuring that security is present at every step of the software delivery lifecycle.
DevSecOps with Packagecloud
Before we dig deep into the DevSecOps, it's important to mention Packagecloud, a universal package management tool that performs package security as a service. Packagecloud is a key player in DevSecOps because they secure the software supply chain.
Packagecloud performs vulnerability checks, supply chain poisoning analysis, and Trojan-horse analysis to ensure that the packages you use are secure. Additionally, Packagecloud checks your packages against all known cybersecurity risks, guaranteeing that nothing inside them is susceptible.
Packagecloud can store all of your packages in one location, giving you complete control over your software supply chain. Instead of utilizing public repositories, you can ensure that packages are always pulled from a controlled environment.
Packagecloud will help to keep your packages and software supply chain safe. You should register for a free trial of Packagecloud and manage your packages correctly.
DevSecOps vs DevOps
The contrast between DevOps and DevSecOps is the culture of shared responsibility. For almost a decade, DevOps has been discussed and written about, and many definitions have evolved. At its heart, DevOps is an organizational model that views development and operations as shared responsibility.
DevOps evolved from a collection of common practices shared across high-performing software engineering teams to a modern engineering culture and methodology declaration. Organizations that combine development and operational responsibilities can iterate more rapidly and, consequently, are more successful. DevSecOps takes that concept a step further by including security goals into the broader goal framework. DevSecOps should be seen as a logical extension of DevOps rather than as a specific term or notion. Successful DevOps teams should see DevSecOps as an evolutionary step rather than a revolutionary one.
Many would agree that the aim was to establish an environment in which business value is generated via a continuous and sustainable code flow to production. This new paradigm included technologies and methods that raised the pace and created a bottleneck, as conventional security procedures with lengthy feedback cycles were incompatible with high-speed DevOps practices. As a consequence, security measures were often implemented until post-production or by external teams inserted into the process, significantly slowing down the process.
To distinguish DevOps from DevSecOps, DevSecOps expands the DevOps culture of shared responsibility to incorporate security measures. Security-related activities are injected early in the application development lifecycle rather than after the product is delivered. This is achieved by empowering development teams to autonomously execute many security activities throughout the software development lifecycle (SDLC).
The technique assists in minimizing vulnerabilities that get it into production, thus lowering the cost of resolving security issues. It enables scalability while also fostering a collaborative culture that aligns security with DevOps goals. DevSecOps seeks to include safety into every step of the delivery process, beginning with the requirement stage, and to create a security automation strategy.
Why do DevSecOps?
While DevOps systems have advanced significantly in speed, scalability, and usefulness, they often lack strong security and compliance. DevSecOps was brought into the software development lifecycle to unify development, operations, and security.
Hackers are always on the lookout for the most effective methods of distributing malware and other vulnerabilities. Consider the possibility that they could inject malware into a program during the development process and were unaware of it until the product was delivered to thousands of consumers.
The ramifications for both the customer system and the company's image would be enormous, all the more so in a world when negative news spreads in a matter of seconds. Security must be treated on an equal footing with development and operations in any company engaged in application development and delivery. When DevSecOps and DevOps are combined, every developer and network administrator keep security in mind when creating and delivering apps.
In addition, there are several factors why we should consider DevSecOps, which we will explore in more detail below:
Proactive security enhancements
DevSecOps integrates cybersecurity procedures into the development process from the start. The code is inspected, reviewed, analyzed, and tested for security vulnerabilities throughout the development cycle. These problems are handled immediately upon identification. Before introducing new dependencies, security issues are resolved. When security problems are discovered and addressed early in the cycle, they become less costly to resolve.
Rapid correction of security flaws
A significant advantage of DevSecOps is the speed with which it handles newly discovered security vulnerabilities. By integrating vulnerability assessment and patching into the release cycle, DevSecOps reduces its capacity to detect and fix known vulnerabilities and exposures (CVE). This reduces the window of opportunity for a threat actor to exploit vulnerabilities in public-facing production systems.
Modern development-friendly automation
If a company utilizes a continuous integration/continuous delivery process to deploy its product, companies may incorporate cybersecurity testing into an automated test suite for operations teams.
Automation of security checks is highly dependent on the project's and organization's objectives. Automated testing can verify that integrated software dependencies are patched to the proper level and that software passes security unit testing. Additionally, it can verify and secure code using static and dynamic analysis before promoting the final update to production.
A cyclical and adaptable process
The security postures of companies evolve throughout time. DevSecOps procedures are repeatable and adaptable. This guarantees that security policies are enforced consistently across the environment, even as it grows and adapts to new needs.
The Best Practices
DevSecOps should be a natural extension of your development, delivery, and operating procedures.
Shift left
It encourages software developers to shift security from the right (end) of the DevOps (delivery) process to the left (beginning). Security is an essential component of the development process from the start in a DevSecOps environment. A company that practises DevSecOps integrates its cybersecurity engineers into the development team. Their responsibility is to guarantee that each component and configuration item in the stack is patched, secured, and documented.
Shifting left enables the DevSecOps team to discover potential risks and exposures earlier and respond quickly to these security concerns. Not only is the development team concerned with developing the product effectively, but they are also concerned with integrating security.
Training in security
Security is a synthesis of engineering and regulatory compliance. Organizations should establish an alliance between development engineers, operations teams, and regulatory teams to ensure that everyone knows and adheres to the company's security posture. Developers must comprehend thread models and compliance checks and understand risk assessment, exposure, and security control implementation.
Culture: People, Process, and Technology
Effective leadership creates an organizational culture that is likely to change. It is critical and necessary for DevSecOps to explain the security of processes and product ownership responsibilities. Only then can developers and engineers assume ownership of their operations and take ownership of their output.
Operations teams in DevSecOps should design a system that works for them, using technologies and protocols that are appropriate for their team and current project. By enabling the team to create their workflow environment, they become invested stakeholders in its success.
Visibility, Auditability, and Traceability
By including traceability, auditability, and visibility into a DevSecOps process, you may get a better understanding of your environment and make it more secure:
- Traceability enables you to follow configuration elements throughout the development cycle, all the way to the point at which understand requirements are implemented in code. This may be critical to your organization's control structure since it assists in achieving compliance, reducing defects, ensuring secure code in application development, and helping with code maintainability.
- Auditability is critical for verifying that security measures are being followed. Security measures at the technical, procedural, and administrative levels must be auditable, well-documented, and adhered to by all team members.
- Visibility is a management practice in and of itself, but it is critical in a DevSecOps context. This indicates that the company has a robust monitoring system to monitor the operation's pulse, issue warnings, raise awareness of changes and cyberattacks as they occur, and ensure accountability throughout the project's lifetime.
DevSecOps for Containers and Microservices
Security for DevOps is purpose-built for containers and microservices. Containers' increased scalability and more dynamic infrastructure have altered the way many companies do business. As a result, DevOps security methods must evolve to comply with container-specific security standards.
Static security rules and checklists do not work well with cloud-native technology. Rather than that, security must be ongoing and integrated throughout the life cycle of the application and infrastructure.
DevSecOps refers to the process of integrating security into the development of an application from start to finish. This integration into the pipeline is as much about a shift in organizational attitude as new technologies. This means that DevOps teams should automate security to safeguard the entire environment and data while also ensuring that the continuous integration/continuous delivery process is secure.
DevSecOps for Kubernetes
Since container-based application deployment is now the growing concept, almost every business that wants to take advantage of these new technologies has begun to adapt. Nowadays, the deployment of container-based applications at their heap and container orchestration systems has become an integral component of DevOps.
In general, a Kubernetes cluster comprises nodes. Each node is composed of a single or many pods. Each pod is composed of a single or many containers. So, what are these containers composed of? They serve as a container for containerized application images. Thus, the security of the deployed application includes the security of these container images.
Due to the way things operate around containers, the emphasis on container-based application security should be increased more than before. There are many significant hazards associated with these applications, including the following:
- Secrets in plain text
- Malware embedding
- Unsafe code or libraries
- Bugs
- Use of outdated and unreliable pictures
Thus, how can we strengthen Kubernetes' security?
- By minimizing the attack surface of Kubernetes
- By using the built-in security capabilities of the Kubernetes platform
- By using open source security technologies for Kubernetes
Conclusion
With the evolving environment of recent technologies containers, Kubernetes, and DevOps—it is critical to maintain a security-first mentality and to embrace a DevSecOps mindset. Moreover, packagecloud can help with DevSecops' mindset as it conducts vulnerability assessments, supply chain poisonings, and Trojan-horse attacks to guarantee the security of the packages you use. Additionally, Packagecloud scans your packages for known cybersecurity threats, ensuring that nothing included inside them is vulnerable.
Packagecloud allows you to centrally store all of your packages, giving you full control over the programmes you use. Rather of relying on publicly accessible repositories, you may guarantee that packages are always fetched from a restricted environment.
Packagecloud will assist you in safeguarding your packages and software supply chain. You should sign up for a free Packagecloud trial here.
