Best Practices For A DevSecOps Pipeline

In today’s fast-moving and high-tech world, there is an increased demand for software and applications from various fields. Software development has become common, and multiple software developers and teams are involved. Certain practices are put to use to speed up software delivery. DevOps is widely used for this purpose. Read on to gain a deeper insight into how DevOps is secured and what practices are involved in achieving this purpose. 

What is DevSecOps?

DevOps is used widely in software development to speed up software delivery and enhance reliability. However, it is important to consider security integration. Therefore, DevSecOps is included in the pipeline to include security in all stages of development. It essentially refers to moving the security aspect towards the developers’ side instead of keeping all security testing and checks at the end of the software development cycle or SDLC. 

What are the Best DevSecOps Practices? 

It is vital to implement the best DevSecOps practices to ensure utmost security. One of the best ways is to integrate security at the earliest possible stage. This leads to a secure workflow from every step to the end. Moreover, security champions should be selected from the whole team who would be responsible for looking after the security of the overall pipeline. 

It is also of importance to adopt secure coding techniques. This would allow the software to be safe from any security issues with low vulnerability levels. Cyber security attacks, data breaches, etc., are some common risks if the code is not secure. Therefore, it would be an intelligent choice to invest resources and time to develop techniques for secure coding, opt for experienced developers and resort to proper coding standards. 

Over time, there are a lot of changes that are made to the software or application, so the changes should be traceable. In order to make this possible, it is best to make sure that immutable versioning is in place. This implies that every action should have a version to allow for quick recovery and can be managed systematically. Moreover, the operations teams would be able to easily track change and measure it once these versions are converted into metadata. 

Automated processes are less prone to error and can be scaled up conveniently. They reduce the risk of misconfigurations and simplify the overall process. Strict security protocols along with automation at all stages from code writing to production, allow for prevention, detection, and fixing issues easily as misconfigurations are largely avoided. In addition, the automated security tests allow for manual work to be eliminated, so accuracy is maintained and makes lives easier for the developers as the issues and vulnerabilities can be discovered automatically. The developers would not have to work through the entire code again. 

Furthermore, using efficient DevSecOps tools is one of the best practices to ensure a high level of security. These tools include different ways for security testing, such as Static Application Security Testing and Software Composition Analysis. These tools allow for security issues to be spotted in the source code. Adding on, open-source dependencies can be discovered via these procedures. There are certain Software Composition Analysis tools that allow the development team to retrieve license information and determine if the open-source components consist of any known security vulnerabilities. These come in handy to the organization as potential vulnerabilities can be found in the initial stages of the DevOps cycle.

Dynamic and Interactive Application security testing should be employed to test the software and applications’ interfaces that can be exposed to security threats and risks. Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) can be combined with Static Analysis Security Testing (SAST), which is called Interactive Application Security Testing, in order to increase the accuracy of checking for software security and safety. 

Several people are involved in a team who work on the code, so it is a good approach to use Git platforms. It makes members capable of collaborating and working together on a single and centralized platform. These services also allow automated security testing and offer features that scan for security threats while simultaneously highlighting issues when work on the code is being done.

Thus, it is best to include these practices in the development pipeline because traditional security methods are most likely not to work in today’s time. After all, speed and security are essential factors that need to be catered to for software production and delivery. 

Ending Note

Organizations must use the DevSecOps approach as a solution to enhance security. The transition from traditional to automated or advanced practices can be a challenge, but it proves to be immensely beneficial to the company in the long run. 

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