DevSecOps now or get left behind!
The new trend in enterprise security and computing is “Dev-Sec-Ops.” “Dev-Sec-Ops” is a short label given to software testing methodology, which uses very real-world conditions to test the functionality, efficiency, reliability, scalability, and security of new software releases.
Today, many companies move from traditional on-premise software development to more affordable and manageable products on the cloud. Dev-Sec-Ops (DSO) is a development process focused on genuine world operations aiming to find the security bugs early while the application development teams complete necessary functionality. DSO is an evolution of security testing processes that take into consideration the requirement of a production environment that is rapidly changing. In this article, we discuss how such a testing approach can not only improve your enterprise’s security posture but allow you to develop a more efficient model, factoring security at the beginning of the process and rapidly delivering software. This article tends to accomplish three things:
1. Highlight what DevSecOps (DSO) is.
2. Speak to the security implications that evolve DSO from the legacy DevOps framework.
3. Introduce ways this technology is revolutionizing the Department of Defense.
So what is DevSecOps?
The “Dev” the part stands for “development.” This is where software development practices occur like for instance: typing “hello world” in a python IDE and saving this to the file helloworld.py as a basic program in your file path on your local machine.
The “Sec” stands for “security.” Before now, the security role was a silo comprising of a specific team usually in the last stage of development. While back when software took a significant time to field (months to years) that process was not as problematic. Now as the demand for software releases have significantly increased: in some cases by the hour there is pressure to integrate security into the fabric of the development life cycle putting new pressure on organizational culture.
The Ops” piece stands for “Operations.” Arguably the most nerve wrecking part of DevSecOps where teams have the last leg before taking cool things into production. DevSecOps is seen as the bridge between software engineering principles, commercial IT policies, and Productionized code. Think of operations as where your production team releases the new iteration of YouTube that has cool new features!
Even though the notion “the tech is easier than the culture shift: we must continue to attack problems and engage people patterns in challenging ourselves to change the talent dynamic.” Adding the security component into DevOps is revolutionary and has seen much progress. It is essential that development teams get caught up to speed on the basics and socialize concepts and share knowledge.
A little more on security!
The security issues faced by application development teams are enormous, and they’ve become much more complex over time. They include not only threats from external sources but also internal weaknesses in the company’s systems. For example, in the past, application security controls used to form a manually controlled black box team that would test for security vulnerabilities in various ways. As the industry has grown, so have the types of penetration tests running on a system. Such test methods have become much more dynamic and more expensive, but they’ve also helped reduce the number of human errors made during the application development process. DevSecOps can help your security team to determine whether any security concerns were valid and if controls and countermeasures were sufficient and effective.
In addition to this, in the current environment, a successful application development company must keep up with the changing demands placed upon it by attackers and defend against attacks with sophisticated countermeasures. The goal is to make the most of available technology and build the most secure system possible. To do this, the control and countermeasures capabilities must be as advanced and as flexible as possible. If you’re looking at developing security controls and countermeasures solutions for your company, dev-sec-ops can help! The following topics are an excellent first step for understanding how a comprehensive and layered security infrastructure can help your application development company stay ahead of the threat: Application security is a significant concern for large companies, the government, and even small startups. No matter the size of your company, its network’s security should be a high priority. DevSecOps can help you by enabling you to build the best possible security controls and countermeasures for your business. There are two ways to develop your application security: manual configuration and automated enforcement. With DevSecOps, you’ll be able to build your security controls manually and, at the same time, enforce them through automatic rule generation.
Your network is only as strong as the weakest link in the chain — if you have weak points in the chain, the whole network will be prone to attacks. Therefore, security measures must combine with healthy application controls and countermeasures. This effort is why DevSecOps can help you with patch management, intrusion detection and response, and virtual private LAN service (VPLS). Now is also an excellent time to discuss security policies for internal servers, your data center, and your application servers with your security team. To ensure that all aspects of your business meet up to your security and operational requirements, you must employ a security control management system (SCM) approach. Doing this includes “application development life cycle management,” monitoring application development, and security checks on critical software and hardware. When you use an SCM approach, you gain a greater insight into the needs of the entire organization to create policies and procedures that are appropriate to your specific environment. As your business grows and expands, your security needs might change — it’s okay to adopt a security SCM approach over the long term — you’ll be able to do so without compromising your current level of security. The security improvements made through DevSecOps makes it easier to secure your application development environment.
Dev-Sec-ops security functions best when there is a lot of activity in the network. If there is a lot of movement in your network, your application security functions very well — however, if there is very little activity, your security controls might not be adequate. In this case, DevSecOps can be used to balance the amount of security your application utilizes between the amount of traffic it generates and the amount of protection your business requires.
Okay, that’s great for business, but what about government!
Easy one! Have you heard of the Department of Airforce’s Platform One and the Department of Navy’s Black Pearl?
As you have seen in this article DevSecOps or DSO is a methodology that incorporates the development or “Dev”, security or “Sec”), and delivery/operations or “Ops” of software systems. Its power is in reducing the time from need to capability while providing continuous-integration and continuous-delivery (CI/CD) with high software quality. As seen in recent years, the swift acceptance and demonstrated efficacy of DSO in software systems development has led to requests for its adoption in more complex projects. As evidenced by the rapid and sustained success of this method now is the time for development teams and leaders to get onboard!
Further material
Myrbakken, H., & Colomo-Palacios, R. (2017). DevSecOps: A Multivocal Literature Review. Communications in Computer and Information Science, 17–29. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67383-7_2
Morales, Jose, Turner, Richard, Miller, Suzanne, Capell, Peter, Place, Patrick, & Shepard, David James. (, 2020). Guide to Implementing DevSecOps for a System of Systems in Highly Regulated Environments. Figshare. https://doi.org/10.1184/R1/12363770.v1
Poth, A., Werner, M., & Lei, X. (2018). How to Deliver Faster with CI/CD Integrated Testing Services? Communications in Computer and Information Science, 401–409. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97925-0_33
US Airforce. (, 2020). Platform One | Office of the Chief Software Officer, U.S Air Force. Software.Af.Mil. https://software.af.mil/team/platformone/
US Navy. (, 2020). Black Pearl | Office of the Chief Software Officer, U.S Navy. Software.Af.Mil. https://blackpearl.us/
Boettiger, C. (2015). An introduction to Docker for reproducible research. ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review, 49(1), 71–79. https://doi.org/10.1145/2723872.2723882
Modak, A., Chaudhary, S. D., Paygude, P. S., & Ldate, S. R. (2018, April 1). Techniques to Secure Data on Cloud: Docker Swarm or Kubernetes? IEEE Xplore. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICICCT.2018.8473104
