DevSecOps Services

In recent times, the DevOps adoption has led to a significant transformation in enterprise computing. DevOps practices are instrumental for organizations in deriving several value-added benefits such as increased agility, speed and reduced costs, in addition
to features such as serverless-computing, dynamic provisioning and pay-as-you-go cost models.

Despite its enormous popularity, DevOps has been found wanting in cases requiring a secure delivery of code. This has led to the development of a new approach that facilitates the co-existence of information security with DevOps, commonly referred to as ‘DevSecOps’.

The Need for DevSecOps

DevOps has made it possible to develop customized software and business applications in a far quicker time by aligning development and operations teams through DevOps. However, in most cases, security has not been accorded a high priority in DevOps implementation and is often viewed as a roadblock to rapid development.

Though organizations are increasingly focused on breaking down the traditional silos between the development, testing and operations teams, many of them haven’t been integrating security into their development process, becoming susceptible to the risk of threats and vulnerabilities.

Here is where DevSecOps Services comes in. The DevSecOps approach includes incorporating security as a significant component of DevOps practices. Through continuous monitoring, assessment, and analysis, DevSecOps services ensure that loopholes and weaknesses are identified early in the development process and remediated immediately.

DevOps Vs. DevSecOps

While DevOps refers to the collaborative environment between the development, testing and operations teams to achieve continuous delivery, DevSecOps involves the integration of the security component into the DevOps process.

DevSecOps tools focus on tackling DevOps Automation security issues, such as configuration management, composition analysis, and others.

What Exactly is DevSecOps?

DevOps commonly understood as a combination of processes and tools that facilitate ongoing collaboration between the software engineering and infrastructure teams.

These, in turn, automate the rapid and reliable delivery of applications and services across organizations. DevOps includes several areas of focus, including automated provisioning, continuous integration, continuous monitoring, and test-driven development.

As an extension of the DevOps mindset, DevSecOps services embed security controls and processes into the DevOps workflow and automated the core security tasks. These DevSecOps cyber security principles are introduced early in the development process and are implemented throughout the Software development life cycle (SDLC).

In addition to providing DevOps teams with security knowledge and practices, DevSecOps services incorporate application development knowledge and processes into security teams for efficient collaboration.

There is no unanimity in the IT field about the usage of the term ‘DevSecOps’, which is sometimes referred to as ‘DevOpsSec’,
‘SecDevOps’ or ‘Rugged DevOps’.

Major Components of the DevSecOps Model

Organizations need to incorporate a cultural and technical shift in their approach to DevSecOps services to address real-time security threats more efficiently.

A practical DevSecOps approach requires consideration of six major components. These include:

• Analysis of code – This enables the quick identification of vulnerabilities through the delivery of code in small chunks.
• Change management – This allows users not only to submit changes that can increase the speed and efficiency- but also to determine if the impact of the change is positive or negative.
• Monitoring compliance – Organizations should be compliant with regulations such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Payment Card Industry Digital Security Standard (PCI DSS) and be prepared for audits any time by
  the regulators.
• Investigating threats –Potential emerging threats accompany each code update. It is crucial to identify these threats at the earliest and respond immediately.
• Vulnerability assessment – This involves the analysis of new vulnerabilities and the response to them.
• Training – Organizations need to involve their software and IT engineers in security-related training and equip them with the guidelines for set routines.

Adopting a DevSecOps Cyber Security Strategy

Making a move from DevOps to DevSecOps is not a simple proposition, but can be achieved successfully in phases with proper planning. There are three key steps that organizations need to consider while adopting DevSecOps:

• Assessment of Current Security Measures – Security teams perform threat modeling and conduct risk assessments, which help them to analyze the sensitivity levels of an organization’s assets and their likely threats. Additionally,
  they can understand the current security controls and prioritize those requiring modification.
• Merging Security into DevOps – Integrating security measures into the development process involves the examination of the development workflow and ensuring minimal disruptions because of the incorporation of security practices
  and automation.
• Integrating DevSecOps with Security Operations – A DevSecOps cyber security strategy implementation can be considered successful only if the development, security, and operations teams are committed to working in coordination and embedding security processes and controls into the entire DevOps workflow. Continuous monitoring of any security concerns during development and ensuring a quick response are vital for integrating security operations with the DevSecOps services.

Essential DevSecOps Tools

DevSecOps tools adoption involves assessing of application security risks and code testing for which specialized tools are essential.

Operating automated testing tools in an integrated development environment (IDE) enables developers to incorporate security into the DevOps workflow and avoid launching a new environment for testing code every time.

Several tools have been developed to facilitate various aspects of DevSecOps implementation. These include:

• Visualization Tools: Tools such as Kibana and Grafana help in identify, evolve, and share security information with operations.
• Automation Tools: Tools like StackStorm help in providing scripted remediation whenever security defects are detected.
• Hunting Tools: These tools help in detecting security anomalies. A few examples include Mirador, OSSEC, MozDef and GRR, among others.
• Testing Tools: Testing is a critical element of DevSecOps with an extensive range of tools such as GauntIt, Spyk, Chef Inspec, Hakiri, Infer and Lynis being used for the purpose.
• Alerting Tools: Tools such as Elastalert, Alerta and 411 provide the alerts and notification upon discovery of security defects requiring remediation.
• Threat Intelligence Tools: These tools capture and collate threat intelligence and include OpenTPX, Critical Stack and Passive Total.
• Attack Modeling Tools: These help in operationalizing attack modeling and security defenses.

DevSecOps Services, A Top Business Priority

Integrating security with DevOps is not just a technological consideration, but also involves people and processes. Successful DevSecOps implementation requires IT teams to focus on business risks along with security.

The global DevSecOps market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 33.7% during the 2017-23 period. DevSecOps tools ensure not only a secure application delivery but also a much quicker time to market.

By proactively adopting DevSecOps automation and redefining their operations, engineering, and security to work in cohesion, organizations can achieve unparalleled levels of success.

Data Insights: DevSecOps Services and Business Impact

How to Implement DevSecOps?

DevSecOps combined them into a single streamlined process by incorporating security at the code level, thus ensuring the safety of applications and procedures at all levels of the process chain.

Five features speak the successful implementation of DevSecOps:

• Mandatory security at every stage
• Thorough Assessment before security
• Security-related changes right at the code level
• Automation of all possible processes
• Continuous monitoring through alerts and dashboards

Business Benefits of DevSecOps

By shifting from a DevOps to DevSecOps services, organizations can transform their handling of the development pipeline. Increased collaboration between the development, security, and operations teams ensures that vulnerabilities are identified and security threats are minimized in the early stages itself.

DevSecOps provides several other advantages to enterprises: greater agility and speed for the security teams, enhanced communication and collaboration between the teams, and identification of code vulnerabilities.

DevSecOps also enables organizations with an ability to rapidly respond to change, in addition to providing opportunities for quality assurance testing and automated builds.

Some additional benefits also result from the adoption of DevSecOps, which include:

• Automatic Securing of Code – DevSecOps tools reduce the risk of introducing security flaws through a human error by automating tests and enable more excellent coverage, consistency, and predictable processes. Additionally, any issues can be tracked and fixed as soon as they occur during the development process.
• Continuous Security Enablement – By using DevSecOps automation tools, organizations can create a closed-loop process for testing and reporting, ensuring that all security concerns are immediately resolved.
• Leveraging Security Resources – DevOps automates most of the standard security processes and tasks that require lesser hands-on time such as event monitoring, account management, code security and vulnerability assessments. This
  allows security professionals to focus their attention towards threat remediation and elimination of strategic risk.

Why Choose Veritis for DevSecOps Consulting Services

Veritis, a Stevie-Award winner, is one of the few providers of end-to-end DevSecOps Consulting Services and Solutions. Our consultants specialize in assessment, implementation, and support for the DevSecOps initiatives of our clients, spanning from simple to complex enterprise-level IT projects.

We develop consultative solutions that enable clients to secure product development with DevSecOps capabilities. We produce tailored DevSecOps platforms integrating security into areas such as build automation, test automation, deployment automation, monitoring, environment management and others.