Successfully adopting a comprehensive DevSecOps solution

Australian enterprises are increasingly being targeted through sophisticated cyber attacks and data breaches with reports of a cyber incident almost every other week. These events not only cause damage to the reputation of the company being targeted, but have serious repercussions for consumers whose personal data is being compromised.

As organisations adopt cloud, container and microservices technologies to compete in a digital world, security remains a top concern. This should come as a timely reminder that for any organisation, security shouldn’t be an afterthought, something that’s done at the end of the development life cycle by the security and IT operations teams.

This is often the case with the DevOps model that combines software development and IT operations functions with a crucial set of practices that brings new efficiency and collaboration. However, security is somewhat isolated from this partnership, often relegated to the final stage of development. With faster development timeframes and an evolving threat landscape, DevOps is no longer robust enough to keep organisations and consumers safe.

When software developers are increasingly opting for shorter, more agile software development life cycles that need updates every few days or even a few hours, this approach to security becomes a hindrance to launching necessary updates or even launching the application quickly to production. To address this, a DevSecOps approach should be implemented early in the application development life cycle, so IT and security teams can tackle security challenges as a continuous and holistic part of the development life cycle.

Red Hat’s 2022 State of Enterprise Kubernetes Security report reveals that DevSecOps is quickly becoming a standard for shifting security left and addressing security issues within the DevOps workflows, with over three-quarters of respondents having initiatives that increase collaboration between DevOps and Security teams. The survey results highlight the importance of collaboration across Dev, Ops, and Security teams to implement security early in the development life cycle.

DevSecOps extends the collaborative culture of DevOps to incorporate security throughout the application life cycle. It encompasses people, processes and technology to make security more pervasive in distributed environments. Through DevSecOps, security becomes a shared responsibility across teams, rather than a set of tasks owned by one team and applied at the end of the development and deployment process. Security, development and operations teams work together, sharing information, feedback, lessons learned and insights. This approach enables security to be integrated from the start of application development and infrastructure deployment, increasing protection and reducing risks.

In part, DevSecOps highlights the need to invite security teams and other partners at the outset of DevOps initiatives to build in information security and set a plan for security automation. It also underscores the need to help developers code with security in mind, a process that involves security teams sharing visibility, feedback and insights on known threats — like insider threats or potential malware.

What are the hallmarks of a robust DevSecOps strategy?

DevSecOps is not “let’s get the security team to look at things more often”. It goes much deeper than that. Having worked with some of the most innovative organisations worldwide, the team at Red Hat have identified three hallmarks of a successful approach to DevSecOps, these include:

• Culture: For DevSecOps to be effective, it must be part of an organisation’s culture towards software development. This means fostering an environment where development, operations and security teams share goals and understand the importance of collaboration with regard to security. When security is a shared responsibility, issues can be fixed faster, compliance and visibility is improved, and business risks can be reduced.
• Process: For DevSecOps to be successful, the teams must carry out multiple, different tasks in some combination while using several different tools. Imagine a large environment with a dozen tools that create a cohesive DevSecOps solution. You can understand how workflow standardisation, documentation and automation is essential. DevSecOps is more effective when there are standardised processes, clear documentation and automated workflows. Designing agreed-upon processes and executing them improves efficiency and security throughout the life cycle, making outcomes more repeatable and reduces errors.
• Technology: This part looks into integrating the platforms, tools and processes being used for application development, deployment and operations into a single cohesive system to boost visibility and foster collaboration. No matter if you are starting fresh or re-using what you already have, it’s important to determine the capabilities of the tools needed at every stage of the development life cycle.
   

In today’s digital economy, where bad actors can be both well-equipped and emboldened than ever, organisations can benefit by adopting DevSecOps technologies and practices. With increased and more impactful cybersecurity breaches taking place routinely, there is more pressure for tighter security controls from governments and partners. DevSecOps is the gold standard for innovative enterprises that value speed and security equally. It empowers teams to adopt a culture of shared responsibility that embeds security into every aspect of the software development life cycle. When done effectively, organisations can innovate more rapidly and minimise business risk.

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