Tech topics

What is DevSecOps?

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Overview

DevSecOps enables integration of security testing earlier in the application security earlier in the software development lifecycle, rather than at the end when vulnerability findings requiring mitigation are more difficult and costly to implement.

DevSecOps is an extension of DevOps and is sometimes referred to as Secure DevOps. While DevOps can mean different things to different people or organizations, it entails both cultural and technical changes. Ideally, security is an implied requirement of successful DevOps.

DevSecOps requires planning application and infrastructure security from the start. The right tools can help meet the goal of continuously integrated security, including such decisions as selecting an integrated development environment (IDE) with security features. The tools and process must also be able to automate some security gates to keep from slowing down the DevOps workflow. As for mitigating risks against malicious user actions on source codes, behavioral analytics can be leveraged to monitor and detect anomalies and activities that could be nefarious in nature.

DevSecOps

What are the benefits of DevSecOps?

Developers don’t always code with security in mind. With a DevSecOps mentality, developers are enabled with enhanced automation throughout the software and application delivery pipeline to eliminate coding mistakes and ultimately reduce breaches. Also, insider risks have been increasing due to either unintentional (e.g. social engineering) or intentional attacks. With behavioral analytics, organizations can detect and address such threats with greater effectiveness and efficiency.

Teams that implement DevSecOps tools and processes to integrate security into their DevOps framework will be able to release secure software faster. Developers can test code for security and detect security flaws as code is written, elevating their awareness and preventing malicious or vulnerable code from reaching production environments. Automated scans can be initiated as part of code check-ins, builds, releases, or other components of the CI/CD pipeline. By integrating with tools developers are already using, dev teams can more easily improve the security aspect of web application development.

What are key components of DevSecOps?

DevSecOps approaches may include these important components:

Application/API inventory
  • Automate the discovery, profiling, and continuous monitoring of the code across the portfolio. This may include production code in data centers, virtual environments, private clouds, public clouds, containers, serverless, and more. Use a combination of automated discovery and self-inventory tools. Discovery tools help you identify what applications and APIs you have. Self-reporting tools enable your applications to inventory themselves and report their metadata to a central database.
Custom code security
  • Continuously monitor software for vulnerabilities throughout development, testing, and operations. Deliver code frequently so vulnerabilities can be identified quickly with each code update.
  • Static Application Security Testing (SAST) scans the application source files, accurately identifies the root cause, and helps remediate the underlying security flaws.
  • Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) simulates controlled attacks on a running web application or service to identify exploitable vulnerabilities in a running environment.
  • Interactive Application Security Testing (IAST) provides a deep scan by instrumenting the application using agents and sensors to continuously analyze the application, its infrastructure, dependencies, dataflow, as well as all the code.
Open source security
  • Open source software (OSS) oftentimes includes security vulnerabilities, so a complete security approach includes a solution that tracks OSS libraries, and reports vulnerabilities and license violations.
  • Software Composition Analysis (SCA) automates the visibility into open source software (OSS) for the purpose of risk management, security, and license compliance.
Runtime prevention
  • Protect applications in production – new vulnerabilities may be discovered, or legacy applications may not be in development.
  • Managing security logs can inform you about what types of attack vectors and systems are being targeted. Threat intelligence informs threat modeling and security architecture processes.
Compliance monitoring
  • Enable audit readiness and a constant state of compliance for GDPR, CCPA, PCI, etc.
Cultural factors
  • Identify security champions, establish security training for developers, etc.
Insider threat mitigation
  • Protect source code and sensitive data by continuously monitoring insider activities to uncover malicious behaviors before damage is done.
AI cybersecurity

IT operations and DevSecOps integration

The integration of IT Operations into the DevSecOps framework represents a significant evolution in software development and deployment practices. This synergy between development, security, and operations teams is crucial for ensuring a seamless, secure, and efficient software development lifecycle. By incorporating IT Operations into the DevSecOps model, organizations can achieve greater agility, enhanced security, and improved overall performance throughout the entire software lifecycle.

The impact of IT Operations on DevSecOps is multifaceted and touches upon several key areas of the development and deployment process:

1. Deploy: Automated infrastructure delivery

In the realm of deployment, IT Operations plays a pivotal role in automating the delivery of infrastructure necessary to deploy applications. This automation is not just about speed; it's about ensuring that every deployment adheres strictly to company policies and best practices. By automating infrastructure delivery, organizations can achieve consistent and repeatable deployment processes, significantly reducing the risk of human error while simultaneously enhancing security.

This automated approach to deployment brings several benefits. First, it dramatically reduces the time-to-market for new applications and updates, allowing businesses to respond more quickly to market demands and customer needs. Second, it ensures that every deployment, regardless of scale or complexity, adheres to organizational standards and compliance requirements. This consistency is crucial in maintaining a secure and compliant IT environment, especially in industries with strict regulatory oversight.

Moreover, automated infrastructure delivery enables teams to implement infrastructure-as-code practices, where infrastructure configurations are version-controlled, tested, and deployed using the same rigorous processes applied to application code. This approach not only improves reliability but also enhances collaboration between development and operations teams, a key tenet of the DevSecOps philosophy.

2. Operate: Automated maintenance and patching

The 'Operate' phase of IT Operations within DevSecOps focuses on maintaining infrastructure through automated patching and updates. This aspect is critical in today's rapidly evolving threat landscape, where new vulnerabilities are discovered regularly, and the window for exploitation is increasingly narrow.

Automated maintenance and patching processes ensure that systems are updated promptly, addressing both security vulnerabilities and performance issues proactively. This automation is essential for several reasons. First, it significantly reduces the time between the discovery of a vulnerability and its remediation, minimizing the exposure window. Second, it ensures consistency across the entire infrastructure, eliminating the risks associated with partial or inconsistent updates.

Furthermore, automated operations reduce the need for manual intervention, which not only saves time but also minimizes the risk of human error – a common source of security breaches and system instabilities. By automating routine maintenance tasks, IT teams can focus on more strategic initiatives, driving innovation and improving overall system architecture.

This approach to operations also supports the principle of continuous improvement in DevSecOps. With automated systems constantly monitoring and updating the infrastructure, teams can maintain a state of ongoing optimization, ensuring that systems are not just secure, but also performing at their best.

3. Monitor: Production observability

Effective monitoring and observability of applications in production environments are crucial components of a successful DevSecOps strategy. This phase goes beyond simple uptime monitoring; it involves comprehensive insights into application performance, user experience, and potential security issues in real-time.

Implementing robust monitoring and observability practices enables organizations to maintain high levels of reliability and uptime. By continuously collecting and analyzing data from production environments, teams can detect and address issues before they impact users. This proactive approach to problem-solving is essential in maintaining user satisfaction and preventing minor issues from escalating into major incidents.

Moreover, infrastructure observability provides invaluable data for continuous improvement. By analyzing patterns in application performance, user behavior, and system interactions, teams can identify opportunities for optimization and enhancement. This data-driven approach to development ensures that future iterations of the application are not just feature-rich, but also more stable, secure, and performant.

Advanced network monitoring tools can also play a crucial role in security. By implementing anomaly detection and behavior analysis, organizations can quickly identify potential security threats or unusual activities that might indicate a breach attempt. This integration of security monitoring into the overall observability strategy exemplifies the holistic approach of DevSecOps, providing integrated production observability with pre-production testing.

4. Plan: Continuous feedback loop

The planning phase in IT Operations closes the DevSecOps loop by providing critical feedback into the development process. This feedback mechanism is essential for driving continuous improvement and ensuring that development efforts are aligned with operational realities and business objectives.

By analyzing data gathered from production environments, IT Operations can drive enhancement requests based on real-world performance data. This ensures that development priorities are set based on actual user needs and system performance, rather than assumptions or outdated requirements.

The concept of error budgeting is another crucial aspect of this planning phase. By setting acceptable thresholds for errors and performance issues, teams can balance the need for rapid innovation with the requirement for system stability. This approach allows organizations to make informed decisions about when to push for new features and when to focus on system reliability and performance improvements.

Performance improvement initiatives are also driven by this continuous feedback loop. By identifying bottlenecks, inefficiencies, or areas of high resource utilization in production, IT Operations can provide developers with concrete targets for optimization. This data-driven approach to performance tuning ensures that efforts are focused where they will have the most significant impact with real-world production feedback.

Furthermore, the planning phase allows for the alignment of development priorities with operational realities. By providing insights into the challenges and constraints of running applications in production, IT Operations helps ensure that new features and updates are designed with operability and maintainability in mind from the outset.

Making DevSecOps work for you

Step 1: Build security into software requirements 
Step 2: Test early, often and fast 
Step 3: Leverage integrations to make application security a natural part of the lifecycle 
Step 4: Automate security as part of the development and testing processes 
Step 5: Monitor and protect during and after release

Securing your DevOps

OpenText’s DevOps platform delivers end-to-end DevSecOps capabilities. It provides a unified, flexible way to integrate security into your DevOps pipeline so you can release high quality software at the speed of business. This cloud-based platform works with your development tools to improve production efficiency, maximize quality delivery, ensure security, and align business goals with development resources.

  • OpenText™ Core Software Delivery Platform seamlessly integrates security into every stage, boosting collaboration and supercharging efficiency.
  • Harness AI to transform data into actionable insights, propelling smarter decision-making.
  • Predict and prepare for security risks by identifying vulnerabilities early.
  • Streamline security processes to innovate faster and proactively tackle threats.
  • Liberate developers from manual security checks, empowering them to focus on breakthrough innovations.
  • Manage threats and boost your threat response capabilities with Fortify’s real-time security insights.
  • Integrate security into your CI/CD pipeline and leverage AI for an optimized workflow.
  • Go to market faster with secure, compliant software that syncs perfectly with your goals, fueling innovation and efficiency with Core Software Delivery Platform + Fortify.

Fortify helps build security into DevOps

  • Holistic, inclusive, and extensible application security platform to orchestrate and guide your AppSec journey.
  • Embed security into application development and deployment with Core Software Delivery Platform and Fortify.
  • DevSecOps with Fortify enables enhanced testing automation throughout the CI/CD pipeline to find coding mistakes.
  • Automated static code analysis helps developers eliminate vulnerabilities and build secure software with Static Code Analyzer.
  • WebInspect dynamic application security testing analyzes applications in their running state and simulates attacks against an application to find vulnerabilities.
  • Take full control of your open source security compliance and community health with OpenText™ Core Software Composition Analysis.
  • Gain clarity across your enterprise by aggregating, analyzing, and reporting assessment results into a single pane of glass—regardless of origin—with Fortify Insight.

Industry-leading DevSecOps solutions

OpenText™ Core Behavioral Signals

It uniquely addresses backend visibility problems by applying behavioral analytics to the application logs of IP repositories such as Source Code Management (SCM) and pinpoints high-risk activities so they can stop bad behavior before a breach.

IT Operations Cloud solutions

OpenText offers a comprehensive suite of IT Operations solutions that seamlessly integrate with the DevSecOps framework, enabling organizations to fully realize the benefits of this integrated approach:

In the deployment phase, ITOM automates infrastructure provisioning and application deployment, ensuring consistency and compliance across various environments. This automation not only speeds up the deployment process but also significantly reduces the risk of configuration errors and security misconfigurations.

For ongoing operations, ITOM provides advanced IT automation capabilities for patch management and configuration management. These features are crucial for maintaining a secure and optimized IT environment, automatically addressing vulnerabilities and performance issues as they arise. The solution's ability to manage both on-premises and cloud environments makes it particularly valuable for organizations with hybrid infrastructures.

ITOM's monitoring and observability tools offer comprehensive insights into application and infrastructure performance. By providing real-time visibility into system health, performance metrics, and potential issues, ITOM enables proactive issue resolution and helps maintain high levels of service reliability.

Perhaps most importantly, ITOM delivers actionable insights and analytics that drive continuous improvement. By analyzing trends, identifying patterns, and forecasting potential issues, ITOM provides IT teams with the information they need to make data-driven decisions and strategically plan for future enhancements and optimizations.

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