What Is DevSecOps And How Does It Work?

Data breaches and cyber-attacks are one of the major concerns for organizations and various industries. Data theft from software applications containing sensitive information like personal data, and financial information is leading to numerous illegal activities causing the loss of millions to organizations.

With the rise in cybercrime and data theft, a need for developing secure systems is in demand. Due to this, DevSecOps is quickly becoming one of the most popular approaches to software development and security .

It is a combination of traditional DevOps and security processes, designed to ensure secure software development and operations.

We will discuss the fundamentals of DevSecOps, the processes involved, and the tools and technologies used to successfully implement it. With this blog, you will have everything you need to understand about DevSecOps. This will help you determine what is the right approach for your software development and integrating security into DevOps.

What is DevSecOps?

DevSecOps is an acronym for development, security, and operations. It means adding security early in the software development life cycle SDLC. The security team is not entirely responsible for the SDLC; but it is a collaboration between development, security, and operations to share the responsibility of the Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) process.

It involves the collaboration of cultural practices, tools, and processes of the development and operations teams to build and deliver software at a higher velocity. These teams use certain software and tools to automate the process reducing human effort and increasing efficacy.

Benefits of DevSecOps

DevSecOps involves adding security before the software deployment to make the SDLC process flow faster. DevSecOps emerged as a need to build secure software; working continuously and collaboratively with the DevOps team to improve and upgrade the security process and deliver secure applications with reduced time and effort.

Incorporating DevSecOps in the software building process lets the developers build awesome software without having any data security and privacy issues. Catering to the need of ever-growing demand developing applications and services at a faster pace, moving security to the �left� of the operations, and introducing it before the deployment lets the security teams provide insights to the developers who are continuously making efforts to deliver the best solution.

The Importance of DevOps for Secure Software Development

Implementing DevSecOps makes the deployment easy as vulnerability issues are identified and fixed early in the SDLC workflow.

With the rising need and demand to build secure software solutions, organizations can implement DevSecOps to break the silos between development, security and operations so that they can release more secure software faster.

There is a requirement for innovative software solutions in all kinds of industries like automotive, healthcare, IT, construction, education, etc. These software applications captures client data or company information. Several industries like financial firms, the e-commerce industry, banks, and retail organizations also store customer information like financial transactions, bank account numbers, and other sensitive data. Leaking this data or the threat of it being stolen can be detrimental to the business.

At ITT Star, we have a group of experienced professionals who have built and delivered new products and services with secure software solutions to a variety of industries. These software�s are built using the expert knowledge the engineers have built in the ITTStar to a variety of industries. over the years.

What are the security tools used by DevSecOps for web applications and API?

Numerous security tools help organizations build security around DevOps applications. However, only a few tools are available that can effectively provide security systems for software applications. In the coming days, the demand for these tools will be on the rise and more and more industries are adopting the integration of DevSecOps for their Continuous Development Continuous Integration (CI/CD) process.

There is no perfect way to induce security in new software applications, but there are several tools that can facilitate fixing these issues. Certain tools are meant to secure the code only and fail to provide secure solutions to the vulnerabilities associated with configurations or the data. They also have limited usage for certain languages or development environments. However, involving multiple testing processes will ensure the overall security of the code as well as data outside of the development environment so that the software applications are safe to be used by the organizations.

Commonly used Application Security Testing (AST) tools are as follows:

Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

SAST is a white box testing methodology, a method or tool that is capable of testing a code without the need to even run the code. It is designed to work on the source code rather than compiled executables. SAST tools focus on the security aspect of testing. It is commonly used to check vulnerabilities in SQL injection.

Static Application Static Tools provide high-performance results so that the code can be rectified and altered in the early phase of development, saving time and security issues that can arise down the line. SAST is incorporated into the CI/CD pipeline preventing any bad code from reaching the production process. Commonly used static application static tools are Coverity, Fortify Static Code Analyzer, Klocwork, Snyk, and Veracode Static Analysis.

Software Composition Analysis (SCA)

SCA tools scan the vulnerabilities in the source code in open-source and third-party components. These tools perform analysis to evaluate security, license compliance, risk management, and quality of code. SCA tools can be used in coherence with the CI/CD process to accelerate prioritization and remediation efforts. These security tools scan the source code, binaries, and dependencies.

Certain organizations may not be aware of the limitations associated with open-source licensing. The use of SCA automates the process and analyzes the code for security and quality.

The SCA tools allow for risk management of open-source software through the software supply chain process. Software Composition Analysis tools like FlexNet Code Insight, GitLab, WhiteSource, and JFrog Xray, are commonly used.

Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST)

DAST is the process of analyzing vulnerabilities in the web application. This kind of software analysis process attacks the application software from the outside, just the way any malicious software would do. It does not require the code to access. DAST scan provides immediate results against the vulnerabilities that could be exposed or utilized.

Dynamic Application Software Testing is independent of the application. Using DAST during the SDLC process eliminated the guesswork of the developer for the kind of vulnerabilities that could exploit the application and the code can be modified before deployment. DAST scanning tools are built to perform in dynamic environments; so they can also detect the runtime flaws that SAST tools are not able to identify.

Interactive Application Security Testing (IAST)

IAST tools are the best solutions for implementing security testing in DevSecOps. This security tool has an advantage over SAST and DAST tools as it can catch the attacks that these software testing tools fail to analyze. However, IAST can be based either with SAST or DAST, so it is important to be clear about the software dimension to be tested.
Interactive Application Security Testing software runs in the background during the software testing workflow to analyze the runtime behavior of the application providing feedback to the developer for the vulnerabilities. This will let the bad code be rectified in the development phase saving time and effort of the developers.

Implementing DecSecOps

Security is the topmost priority of any organization. Implementing DevSecOps in the development process will keep the data breach at bay. Integrating security in the DevOps workflow will save the value and reputation of the organizations.

A secure DevSecOps implementation will involve:

• 1. First, setting up of a secure infrastructure
• 2. Second, training the team and keeping track of the changes made to the code after the software testing and analysis
• 3. Third, using automated software security testing to make the process accurate and fast
• 4. And finally, the tools are providing accurate results to detect vulnerabilities and threats

Conclusion

Implementing security into DevOps has become a crucial part of any organization. However, it is important to keep the security team updated on the new tools and threats emerging so that the right kind of tool is being used to analyze the vulnerabilities.

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