In the evolving history of software development, the predecessor of Development Security and Operations (DevSecOps), Development Operations (DevOps), introduced automation, and DevSecOps takes that to the next level by introducing security measures to every step in the process and eliminating silos between teams. Professionals rely on tools to execute automation, testing, and integration that might otherwise be unattainable at the market's pace and quality demands. DevSecOps tools for success integrate security into the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) and Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipelines.
This guide provides recommendations for DevSecOps tools to help teams minimize risk in the development pipelines without slowing down progress, detect and fix security vulnerabilities continuously, automate testing so that security teams do not have to stop and conduct manual reviews, and more.
1. Threat Modeling
Threat modeling is a structured approach DevSecOps teams can use to predict, detect, and assess threats across an entire application or system. Threat modeling aims to enable teams to minimize security risk exposure and quickly make data-driven, proactive security decisions. Threat modeling involves breaking the system into components and identifying potential threats to every system component. Next, weaknesses and vulnerabilities like design flaws, misconfigurations, and other issues must be identified. Once the pain points are identified, the risks must be prioritized based on the likelihood of occurrence and severity of impact. Then, teams need to develop and implement mitigation strategies. These may include changing architecture, code, and security controls and adding in best practices. It is important to note that threat modeling is an iterative process that needs to be repeated and updated as the system or app evolves and the threat landscape changes.
2. Open Source Vulnerability Scanning
Many software projects contain hundreds or thousands of external dependencies. These could have security vulnerabilities or present licensing issues once they are in a system or app. Open-source vulnerability scanning, or software composition analysis (SCA), identifies open-source components, libraries, and their dependencies in a system or app. Then, any detected open source artifacts are classified by distinguishing characteristics such as source, version, distribution, and common platform enumeration (CPE) or the structured naming scheme for the information in the software. Then, the artifacts are compared against vulnerability databases, software vendor security advisories, and other security resources to evaluate the severity and potential impact of the vulnerability and explore opportunities for correction. Ultimately, open-source vulnerability scanning benefits DevSecOps because it executes vulnerability scans during the planning stage and multiple stages of development to ensure new vulnerabilities do not emerge further down the pipeline.
3. Static Application Security Testing
Static application security testing (SAST) allows developers to scan source code for weak or insecure coding and identify security issues that must be addressed during the coding stages. Then, security issues are prioritized, and mitigation efforts can commence. When SAST is integrated into the SLDC or CI/CD, teams can perform SAST at designated checkpoints to determine whether or not a build or component can proceed to the following stages. The pass or fail criteria are usually based on a set number or severity of security issues. Ultimately, integrating SAST into the integrated development environment (IDE) allows developers to see code weaknesses while writing the code so security can be established from the start.
4. Dynamic Application Security Testing
Dynamic application security testing (DAST) automatically performs security tests on running applications. This tool does not require access to source code. Instead, it tests the HTTP and HTML interfaces of web applications for real vulnerabilities from the perspective of the attack. DAST simulates common attacks by recreating how an attacker might detect and exploit vulnerabilities. It is a helpful method for verifying application security in both testing and staging environments.
5. Image Scanning
Container images, or static files with immutable code, are commonly used in DevOps projects and often end up in DevSecOps projects. In DevSecOps, it is crucial to scan for vulnerabilities because container images are typically open-source and may be from non-verified sources. Furthermore, container deployments scale easily, meaning attacks that may be embedded in the container deployments can also scale. Image scanning tools verify that the images contain only trusted and secure code and comply with secure configuration best practices.
6. Infrastructure Automation
DevSecOps heavily relies upon the automation of infrastructure configuration and security. Many different types of automation exist, including event-based automation, configuration management, infrastructure as code (IaC) automation, or cloud configuration management tools. Automation tools detect and repair security vulnerabilities and configuration issues in system or app environments.
7. Dashboard Visualization
Development, security, and operations teams need tools to view and share security information. Dashboard visualization tools present trends, key performance indicators (KPIs), and other meaningful information to stakeholders. The dashboards can be customized to show relevant security data, log data, and many other monitoring statistics.
8. Alerts
Alert tools, also known as alerting systems, notify teams of suspicious events once the occurrence is analyzed and deemed worthy of attention. These tools play a crucial role in maintaining the security and stability of systems and apps. Alerts are designed to reduce noise, avoid disrupting workflows, and help DevSecOps teams quickly respond to legitimate security events. They also facilitate collaboration and help teams meet compliance and security requirements.
Encora and DevSecOps
Encora's experience in DevSecOps allows our teams to improve agility and respond in real time to shifting market demands and evolving security threats. By considering security at every stage of development, we shorten development cycles, increase deployment frequencies, and deliver robust, dependable releases to improve your application's time to market.
Contact us to learn more about DevSecOps.
