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

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

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 embeds security controls and processes into the DevOps workflow and automates the core security tasks. These security principles are introduced early in the development process and are implemented throughout the development life cycle.

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

DevSecOps adoption involves assessment of application security risks and code testing for which specialized tools are essential. Usage of automated testing tools in an integrated development environment (IDE) enables developers to incorporate security into the DevOps workflow and avoid the need to launch a new environment for testing code every time.

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

     * Visualization Tools: Visualization tools help to identify, evolve, and share security information with operations.

     * Automation Tools: These tools 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 Gauntt, 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.

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

     * DevOpsSec vaguely implies that security comes into the picture at the end of the DevOps process. This means the security team would be involved in the review only after the completion of the development, deployment, and operation phases. This is not the ideal approach, as security must be integrated into all stages of the DevOps cycle.

     * The term SecDevOps seems to suggest that security activities take preference even before development or operations, which is also not entirely practical.

     * The rugged DevOps approach is also focused on ensuring code security during all phases of the software development lifecycle. Rugged DevOps involves penetration testing or pen testing for detecting vulnerabilities and enforcing security.

     * DevSecOps integrates the DevOps approach uniformly with security operations and is the most commonly-used terminology.

Organizations need to incorporate a cultural and technical shift in their approach to DevSecOps 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 changes 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.

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 the 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 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 approach.

Separation of development and security are no longer two different aspects. 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