Cyberattacks have become a permanent and persistent threat to businesses across commercial and government sectors. It has been seen that most security breaches occur due to negligence and small mistakes. Most people think that the software developers are the ones who are solely responsible for creating a secure application. The fact is it’s not completely true. Security is not the primary duty of developers. Depending on the requirements, they focus on software development and equip it with the required functions.

Most experienced security teams work on the security checks at the end of the development cycle, which makes the entire process time-consuming. That’s why DevSecOps is introduced to resolve the issue. It automatically integrates security in every phase of the application development process. It helps to speed up the development process. 

Several businesses have successfully adopted DevSecOps, but 60% of the organizations still think implementing DevSecOps is a technical hurdle. So, we can say that the successful adoption of DevSecOps is inconsistent. The main reason behind this is that most organizations are unaware of the DevSecOps capabilities. 

Are you also confused about implementing DevSecOps in your organization? Before making any decision, the first thing that you should know is the core capabilities that DevSecOps should possess when adopting it for your business.
 
Read this comprehensive guide to know about DevSecOps capabilities:

• Introduction to DevSecOps
• Why do businesses need DevSecOps?
• 5 capabilities that DevSecOps technology must possess
• Benefits of adopting DevSecOps approach
• Conclusion

Introduction to DevSecOps

Also known as secure DevOps or rugged DevOps, DevSecOps is the seamless integration of security testing as well as protection throughout the software development and deployment lifecycle. Its aim is to replace the traditional method of security (DevOps), in which security is tested at the last phase of the application development cycle.

DevSecOps also automates a few security checkpoints so that the development process never slows. Like the DevOps process, its goal is to deliver the software faster and to find and respond to software flaws quickly with efficiency. By integrating DevSecOps into the software development life cycle, the development team is able to deliver secure and enhanced applications faster and at affordable prices.

Now, the question becomes: what does DevSecOps need to do to replace the traditional approach to securing applications, where the security tests are performed at the end of the development cycle? Well, it can only be possible when all the team members, including the development, operational, and security teams, consider security their responsibility. It makes the process easy to find the potential security risks earlier and fix them at the right time.

Why Do Businesses Need DevSecOps?

It goes without saying that the number of cyber-attacks has grown steadily over the last few years. According to statistics, 80% of the data breaches are caused by unknown software or antivirus vendors. This is the reason why businesses need to incorporate security into the DevOps process, as security can no longer be compromised.

The DevSecOps approach keeps companies agile and competitive while adapting to new and updated changes. Before the introduction of DevSecOps, the security team had to spend a long time configuring the security before and after the launch of an application. Needless to say, it complicated the entire development process and created several issues among the team members.

DevSecOps has resolved this issue by improving the collaboration between the development, operation and security teams. This better collaboration not only helps create an efficient work environment but also increases efficiency and improves performance.

5 Capabilities that DevSecOps Technology Must Possess

Over the years, DevSecOps has become immensely popular. It removes the everyday struggle for the IT professional, such as fixing several code errors, malfunctioning applications and extended deadlines. However, to fully-implement DevSecOps in your organization, it's crucial to understand its capabilities.

You can fasten the software development delivery process using some validated DevSecOps capabilities. It also helps an organization to improve their performance. Look at the list below to know the way to implement, measure and improve the technical capabilities of the DevSecOps:

Automation

 Automation is the key to balancing security integration with scale and speed. If you are implementing DevSecOps in your organization, then automation is one of the major factors you need to consider while implementing DevSecOps. It ensures that the security practices and tools are used in a reliable, consistent and repeatable manner.

DevSecOps introduces security checks throughout the development cycle. It's also important to automate the tools to detect and fix bugs or vulnerabilities from the initial development phase.

Check Code Dependencies

The dependency checker is known as the most important tool in DevSecOps. It is used to scan the software to find the vulnerability.

Nowadays, most organizations are using open-source software despite knowing the rising risks of adopting third-party software. It may create vulnerabilities in the code. If you are using open-source software, you need to know whether it causes any vulnerabilities or not. Here, code dependency checks play a key role in DevSecOps. It detects vulnerabilities contained in open-source software.

Accuracy

Automation is an important factor, but quality and accuracy also play an important role. Based on this CISO survey, 77% of people believe they receive false positives of vulnerabilities and security alerts from their security tools. Your organization needs to perform security checks that can remove these false positives. It will help you in achieving better efficiency of DevSecOps.

Continuous Integration

Continuous integration is the most important aspect of the software development process. Basically, it is the software development practice in which developers merge their code changes into a central repository. For continuous integration, it's essential that the developers, operation and security teams work together. But, forcing developers to integrate their work with other team members often creates conflicts and exposes integration issues. The continuous integration offers a room where testing and patching are performed continuously based on feedback.

Faster Results

Speed is the top priority for modern DevOps teams. So, it’s important that security tools provide real-time results for application security testing. For example, Intelligence Orchestration notifies developers when to use the right security testing. Helping cancel out the noise of numerous security notifications.

Benefits of Adopting the DevSecOps Approach

DevSecOps aims to integrate security standards into the DevOps cycle. It means implementing security controls at all the levels of the application development life cycle in the early stages. It has numerous benefits and a few of them are described below:

Improve Security

One of the best things about DevSecOps is that it makes security a part of the entire software development life cycle. The code is scanned, audited, reviewed, and tested throughout the process to find security-related issues. These issues are resolved as soon as they are detected. When security issues are identified and resolved earlier, it makes the development process less expensive.

Moreover, it improves collaboration among security, operations, and development teams, improving the response time to the problems. DevSecOps decreases the time to fix the vulnerabilities and saves time for the security teams to concentrate on the productivity of the work.

Boost the Software Delivery Process

Application development in a non-DevSecOps environment can create major delays in the software delivery process. When the developers reach the last stage of the application development cycle, they face major issues for which they have to fix the code amongst other things. All this makes the entire process time-consuming and costlier. This problem was resolved with the introduction of DevSecOps in the software development process. It not only makes the process faster but also lowers the cost by reducing the need for the process repetition to fix security issues.

Patch the Security Vulnerabilities Faster

The main benefit of DevSecOps is that it manages security vulnerabilities faster whenever they are identified. As DevSecOps integrates bug scanning and patching into the application development life cycle, it reduces the time of patching the vulnerabilities and makes the entire process faster.

Repeatable and Adaptive Process

DevSecOps is a repeatable and adaptive process. Due to this, security is applied consistently throughout the development process when the environment changes and adjusts to new requirements. For the implementation of mature DevSecOps, it’s important to incorporate procedures such as automation, immutable infrastructure, configuration management.

Takeaway

Implementing DevSecOps is not as easy as it sounds. The transition from the traditional approach to an advanced one is challenging. If you want to implement it for your organization, you first need to understand the DevSecOps capabilities. It will help you drive the software delivery process faster and improve your organizational performance.

Are you interested in improving your organization's ability and performance to deliver secure applications? The DevSecOps capabilities offered by Everable will help you to implement security during the development cycle to make the entire process reliable and consistent.

So, what are you waiting for? Book a free demo to know more about it.