In conventional security, programmers evaluate the integrity of their code, and administrators guarantee that firewalls and other defenses are functional in real-world settings. Managers and security specialists handle access control and other duties. DevSecOps employs version control and CI/CD pipelines to automatically set up and manage security-related tasks across all teams before deployment.
DevOps to DevSecOps Transition
DevOps evolved into DevSecOps to meet the need to integrate security throughout the software development life cycle (SDLC). DevOps teams can continually deploy secure applications without compromising speed by moving security from the SLDC to everywhere. It is possible to avoid the time-consuming and expensive effects of patch postproduction by incorporating testing, triage, and risk mitigation into the CI/CD workflow.
Instead of “bolting on” protection at the end of the SDLC, DevSecOps enables programmers to fix security concerns in their code in close to real-time. Throughout the SDLC, DevSecOps combines real-time continuous feedback loops and insights.
The concept of continuous integration and delivery, a core pillar of DevSecOps, is aligned with the idea of automated and continuous testing, which is one of the primary ways businesses assist DevSecOps. Because every firm is a software company, maintaining the pace of product delivery depends mainly on how well you can uncover vulnerabilities and how quickly you can patch them.
Automation: The Key to DevOps and DevSecOps
The foundation of both DevOps and DevSecOps is automation. It guarantees the reusability of the build and release processes; it is crucial when the release rate is too high for human actions to be performed between release phases or at predetermined intervals.
Automation guarantees the execution of necessary procedures every time code is pushed and eliminates the need for human memory, allowing for the completion of crucial activities like regression testing. It acts as the point of policy enforcement for the segregation of roles, preventing direct developer access to production, which further strengthens security.
It can be challenging for many security professionals, especially those without backgrounds in application security or software development, to recognize opportunities on how and where to automate security testing in a development pipeline.
5 methods for DevSecOps security testing automation
Here are five instances where teams can incorporate automated security assessments into development pipelines.
- Code quality (SAST)
When people think about software security, code quality or static application security testing (SAST) may come to mind first. Static code scanning is recognizable to users of the Unix tool Lint, which works to discover errors in C code.
Static analysis programs look for security flaws in source code or, less frequently, object code. One can automate it in one of the following places in the DevOps toolchain:
- It can work when a developer commits code, which entails scanning the code and reporting on any high-severity errors.
- It might happen before a build.
- When employing a post-build tool, it can help evaluate object code rather than source code.
Establishing a baseline metric—an acceptable error rate—above which user interaction is necessary can be one approach. Base your decision on the quantity, seriousness, or both issues. If the level is higher, the developer must take steps to fix the code before being promoted. Another choice is to identify the problem for further review downstream but not actively gate the code push, depending on the release cycle and tweaking of SAST for false positives.
- Web application scanning (DAST)
One can dynamically test applications after their development but before their release for production.
Dynamic application security testing (DAST) tools work by looking into an app from the outside in. It entails scanning an application’s surface area, interacting with it, and watching what happens. Post-build during automated quality assurance is a suitable time to integrate automation in a DevOps toolchain. Explore utilizing an open-source application scanner with other testing operations to get up and running rapidly. The testers can use this method to test REST APIs or web UI elements.
- Container scanning/vulnerable dependency analysis
These days, Most businesses rely on application containers for developing new applications. Containers are helpful because they bundle an application or component with the necessary underlying libraries, middleware, resources, and other requirements.
Although this is a helpful aspect of containers, one of the potential downsides is that occasionally the underlying components have known security flaws. The temptation can be to overlook those vulnerabilities or fail to recognize their existence because the container has the dependencies clustered together in a way that needs less work from an operations perspective.
Automated tools that scan containers, like the free and open-source Anchore Engine or Clair tools, examine dependencies inside a container to help solve this problem by identifying and disclosing weak supporting components. These technologies provide automation by allowing the use of containers at any stage following creation. If significant concerns are detected in dependencies, initiate a manual review to fix the vulnerable dependence, record the issue for future action, or take any other necessary action.
- Software composition
A company might develop a software bill of materials (SBOM) for several purposes for the company and its clients. The intricacy involved with maintaining an accurate and up-to-date list of underlying dependencies makes creating an SBOM challenging. Adding a software composition analysis (SCA) tool to a toolchain is a helpful strategy for maintaining an SBOM.
An SCA tool can also assist in determining the optimal places to introduce automation. For instance, software that uses object files or executable images would require post-build execution, whereas software that uses source code may occur concurrently with commit.
- Automated vulnerability scanning
The tools mentioned above cover most of the software components but not all of them. DAST can scan REST APIs and Web UI systems, and it can scan containers containing software. How about software that falls into neither category?
Vulnerability scanning can be helpful in these situations. A vulnerability scan can assist teams who are deploying to a cloud-based virtual machine or implementing a customized OS installation in identifying and highlighting potential security vulnerabilities. Automating vulnerability scanning is a great complement to configuration management because running a vulnerability scanner after modifying deployed resource’s configuration might be beneficial.
Do you also want a DevOps solution for improved collaboration or to automate your development workflow to increase your business value? Hashe can help you automate your workflow and boost user satisfaction by streamlining it. Throughout the whole process of developing a product, we adhere to DevOps best practices. You can create a cross-functional team with the aid of our DevOps specialists for improved collaboration. If you want to profit from an efficient DevOps cycle for your organization, don’t hesitate to get in touch!
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