Integrating Security with DevOps Consulting Services: Best Practices
Today, DevOps is the talk of the town, promising speed, agility, and efficiency in software development and IT operations. But in this fast-paced race, one crucial element often gets left behind-‘security.’
With the emergence of DevOps consulting services, which are professional services that assist businesses in adopting and implementing DevOps practices, the global trend of implementing security into this technology is not just a passing fad. It’s a movement that businesses worldwide actively participate in, striving to incorporate security into their DevOps operations.
Furthermore, as per the new report by Gartner, the projected rapid increase in DevOps adoption is staggering. By 2027, a whopping 85% of production development teams are expected to implement DevOps practices, a significant jump from the 30% in 2022. This underlines the urgency of integrating security with DevOps. The time to act is now.
So, let’s get started to learn why injecting security into this tech stack is highly necessary.
What are the Issues of Traditional DevOps?
DevSecOps, integrating security in DevOps, is becoming highly popular as an approach to software development. Its main aim is to maximize security while the entire development process is taking place. However, traditional DevOps tooling follows the waterfall model. It is the process of moving forward in one direction, just like water falling from one rock’s edge.
In the traditional approach, the development team must stop the current process to solve the previous problem. This development approach takes longer, and the model is no longer effective in today’s market.
Here are some of the issues if you fail to include security in DevOps and cloud computing:
- Endless risk of database hacking and data breach
- Non-compliance with current software requirements
- Frequent downtimes resulting in losses
- Application failures leading to customer dissatisfaction
Top Result-Worthy Practices to Integrate DevSecOps
As threats become more prevalent in the present era, check out the practices to inject security into DevOps software development below:
Document the Development Strategy
DevOps process can turn complex without a proper development strategy. You may be unaware that your products can be a collection of services with hidden vulnerabilities. Therefore, while creating a good plan, it is essential to remember specific points, such as identifying potential security risks, setting clear development goals, and establishing a robust testing process.
Most professional DevOps solution providers use value stream mapping, a technique that visualizes the value, cost, and owner of processes in your pipeline. This helps detect areas for improvement and potential security vulnerabilities. Additionally, it’s crucial to note that organizations that update their technologies regularly are 30% more likely to maintain their security in a DevOps program.
Testing Incident Response Plan
Does your organization have any solid plan for a sudden security incident? Doing this will help you take necessary actions against any type of data breach. Your plan must include the following:
- Proper incident response teams
- Use of DevOps tooling to identify issues
- Use of techniques to eliminate threats
- Restoring systems to normal threat
However, an experienced company providing DevOps consulting services will routinely test the incident response plan for proactive security in this tech stack.
Opt for Trunk Based Development
Trunk-based development may seem new, but it can benefit your business in the long run. Here, the DevOps solution provider works on batches of code and merges results daily into the trunk. All the code gets directly integrated into the main codebase and tracked in version control. With this, monitoring changes and identifying security issues becomes easier.
Moreover, the trunk-based approach focuses on smaller and more frequent code releases, decreasing the time necessary to deploy security patches. Aside from this, the approach also changes the failure rate, resulting in less unplanned work.
Mitigate Risks Beforehand
Under DevOps tooling falls the Security Information and Event Management Solutions (SIEM) that centralizes data logging. It lets you monitor systems for unauthorized access, malware infections, and other suspicious activity.
With real-time data breach detection, it enables you to mitigate threats before causing harm. Furthermore, the internal systems (e.g., network monitoring tools, security information and event management systems) allow you to configure SIEM to monitor public sources related to possible vulnerabilities in your software.
Carrying Out Threat Modeling and Simulations
Proactive team testing is also necessary to inject security into DevOps. However, here are some of the multiple methods used by a professional DevOps solution provider, which are:
- Designing an attack from the hacker’s point of view, considering the optimal entry and exit points
- Dividing employees into two teams: those emulating data breaches and the other one remediating attacks
- Testing against unpredictable scenarios to find hidden vulnerabilities
According to a Cisco report, companies that conduct threat modeling have a 2.5% higher chance of maintaining business resilience.
What are the Results of Injecting Security into DevOps?
Take a look at some of the benefits of availing DevOps consulting services with the integration of security:
- Reduces the number of possible incidents and solves issues at an early stage. This results in less time usage and resources.
- DevSecOps automation and processes continuously focus on safety monitoring and control. You get to learn about emerging issues immediately and solve them promptly.
- DevSecOps adheres to current security requirements. Complying with these rules keeps the organization safe from legal and financial risks.
- Promises higher product quality and stable application performance. It identifies vulnerabilities and risks at early stages to avoid several factors that reduce software quality.
- Identifying and fixing problems at an early stage. This reduces a number of risks that decrease a product’s value in the long run.
What is Next?
As the final step, every business must realize the need to inject security into DevOps for their benefit. On a concluding note, DevOps for security can eliminate threats, improve resilience and reduce the cost of data breaches.
Opt for DevOps consulting services if you lack the necessary knowledge and tools to implement such security measures. Partnering with a reputed company will make your business reach heights in no time. So, what are you waiting for? Get started today!
