What Is DevSecOps?
DevSecOps is a management approach that unifies software development (Dev), security (Sec), and operations (Ops). It involves using infrastructure as a code (IaaS) to create an automated, continuous delivery lifecycle. The goal is to integrate security into the entire DevOps process and prioritize it equally to prevent bottlenecks and minimize the attack surface.
Traditionally, security is situated at the end of the software development life cycle (SDLC). However, discovering security vulnerabilities at the end of the SDLC after the product is already ready is more difficult, takes more time, increases costs, and can postpone releases. If these vulnerabilities are ignored, products can be released with severe security issues.
DevSecOps incorporates security across the entire SDLC, enabling teams to locate security weaknesses and vulnerabilities as they code, fixing issues early on when they are more easily resolved. Using processes like continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) ensure teams remain agile and efficient.
Web Application Security and Vulnerabilities
Web application security helps protect websites, web services, and web applications from threats that can exploit vulnerabilities in web application code. It involves applying application security principles to Internet and web systems to protect against various threats and attacks.
Web application threats Threat actors consider web applications high-priority targets due to several reasons. The increasing complexity of source code increases the attack surface, offering a greater chance of finding unattended vulnerabilities and applying malicious code manipulation.
These targets offer high-value rewards, such as sensitive private data and easy execution. Threat actors can easily automate most attacks, simultaneously launching them indiscriminately against thousands or hundreds of thousands of targets.
Common web security vulnerabilities Security vulnerabilities enable actors to employ various attack vectors to target web applications. Here are commonly used vulnerabilities:
SQL injection—threat actors can use malicious SQL code to manipulate a backend database. The consequences of SQL injection can include data leaks, unauthorized administrative access, and dropping (deletion) of tables. Cross-site scripting (XSS)—attacks can target an application’s users to access user accounts, modify page content to deface a website or trick users, and inject Trojans. Stored XSS is a dangerous various occurring when actors inject malicious code persistently into an application. Reflected XSS occurs when actors reflect malicious scripts from an application to a user’s browser. Remote file inclusion (RFI)—threat actors can attempt to inject files remotely into a web application server. It can allow actors to execute malicious code and scripts in applications, steal data, and compromise web servers. Cross-site request forgery (CSRF)—this attack can allow actors to transfer funds, change passwords, or steal data. Actors using CSRF leverage a user’s open session to cause the user’s browser to covertly perform actions on a site the user is already logged into.
Failure to secure web applications exposes them to attacks that can result in data theft, revoked licenses, legal proceedings, and damaged client relationships.
Why DevSecOps Makes Application Development More Secure
Here are the main reasons that DevSecOps increases security.
DevSecOps Teams Leverage Automation Tools
DevSecOps practices rely heavily on advanced tools to automate security tests and apply protections. These tools should be part of the development process, allowing application developers to implement security practices easily.
There are several types of DevSecOps tools that help teams shift security left and increase security at different stages of the development life cycle:
Interactive Application Security Testing (IAST)—works while human testers or automated tests run the application or when it interacts with other applications. This functional test identifies flaws in real time but only checks the aspects of an application that interact with the test. Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST)—a black-box testing method that emulates the techniques used by potential attackers. It helps identify authorization and validation errors, injection vulnerabilities, and more. DAST should be coupled with white-box tests that look at the application’s architecture and code. Static Application Security Testing (SAST)—a white-box testing method that checks applications from the inside. It analyzes binary, bytecode, and source to locate flaws and is most effective when paired with DAST. Runtime Application Self-Protection (RASP)—an advanced solution that shifts security left. It runs on the application or cloud platform to actively identify vulnerabilities and block live attacks. RASP tools can be configured based on application-specific threat modeling. Software Composition Analysis (SCA)—identifies all open source code, including libraries, components, and dependencies. SCA is important because almost all modern applications use open source components that could introduce security vulnerabilities.
Security Shifts Left and Right
Shifting security left means addressing security issues in pre-production, which improves the efficiency of the development process. However, it is also important to shift security right (i.e., post-production) to maintain visibility over the live application’s security.
Most attacks occur in production, so monitoring applications for new vulnerabilities and exploits is essential, especially when exposed to the public Internet. Malicious entities could exploit unknown vulnerabilities to carry out attacks.
Production environments often host home-grown and off-the-shelf applications that don’t go through the full testing process. Addressing vulnerabilities during the development stage while evaluating applications at runtime helps reduce the effort and time to fix security issues.
Security Is Implemented During Development
Traditionally, security testing is a distinct stage of the application delivery process, after development and before operations and release. DevOps methodologies have accelerated the overall process (development, testing/security, operations); DevSecOps combines these stages into a joint effort by a unified team.
Instead of relying on vulnerability scans and security assessments post-development, DevSecOps allows teams to identify security issues while building the application. It integrates application security tests earlier in the DevOps workflow. Shifting security left allows developers to find and fix issues before the software reaches production, improving delivery speed and minimizing risk.
Security Is Built-In
Building a fully hardened application requires considering security early and incorporating safeguards into the application design. DevSecOps uses the input of security experts when writing applications rather than tacking on security measures at the end. s.
Security by design reduces the burden of discovering and remediating vulnerabilities post-release. It helps prevent software rollbacks and security bottlenecks. DevSecOps methods bake security into the application’s key functions and frameworks.
Conclusion
In this article, I defined DevSecOps and showed four ways it can make your web applications more secure:
Automation - DevSecOps creates a culture of efficiency and process automation, and invites the use of automated security tools to discover and fix vulnerabilities. Shifting security left and right - a DevSecOps process shifts security checks left, to the start of the development process, and also to the right, to ensure security monitoring in production. Security implemented during development - a unique feature of DevSecOps is that developers gain security expertise and learn to implement secure coding practices. Security is built-in - DevSecOps teams design applications to be secure from the ground up.
I hope this will be useful as you build a stronger, more secure software development process.