5 Reasons DevOps And Security Need To Work Together

Source- forbes.com

There is nothing like speeding up your business processes and development cycles is there? DevOps has revolutionized the way businesses meet the constantly evolving needs of their customers, without sacrificing productivity. Even as good as it sounds, it can still come at a price if DevOps and security are not working together.

With the speed at which new iterations are released, it can be tough for security to keep up. In fact, 68 per cent of cybersecurity professionals are demanded to do everything possible to not slow business down. Over half of companies cut back on security measures to meet a business deadline. And 57 per cent of operations teams don’t follow security best practices. With stats like that, no wonder breaches happen.

If DevOps and Security are not working together – you will surely land in hot water. Avoiding security for the sake of speed will open your business up to many risks. Let’s take a look at five reasons that DevOps and security must work together.

DevOps and Security Together Should Be a Priority for Every Team

Each team within your enterprise should place security at the top of their list, no matter what the situation. This seems like a no-brainer except for the fact 68 per cent of professionals demand that business doesn’t slow down. How are we supposed to expect our employees to focus on security when the higher-ups are putting pressure on them to keep producing at a high volume? It needs to start at the top. To implement the proper security measures needed to secure your data, code, and applications, all teams should be given the opportunity to put security first, instead of development. After all, what will there be to develop if a cyber attack claims your enterprise?

Proper training in security measures is critical as well as building a culture of security at every level of your company. A whopping 42 per cent of operation teams are not properly trained in security measures due to the shifted focus towards moving business along fast. Like I’ve said before, the most dangerous threat to security is human error. Why risk it when you can just as easily train your employees. By placing priority on security, your operations teams and the rest of your enterprise will be well-rounded in both, creating the perfect DevSecOps environment.

Security Should Be Tracked the Same as DevOps

Prioritizing tasks and critical information has never been easier. Work tracking systems are available for companies to keep an eye on how projects are being completed and how fast developments are happening. To truly prioritize DevOps and security together, they should be tracked in the same way.

If you have a dashboard that tracks your daily projects and handles your to-do lists, a similar one should be created for security tasks. And, this should go without saying, the security dashboard should be accessible by all employees. If you want security to be a priority for all of your employees you need to give them all of the information.

Security can fall by the wayside during development. Tracking security alongside all other critical business processes will keep it fresh, up to date and always present.

Applications Should Be Secured

During the development process, developers normally test the application for functionality, ensuring everything is working as planned. However, if developers are not testing for what can go wrong, how secure can the application be? Remember when Apple Maps first launched and how terrible it was? It was barely usable. A launch like that can be hard to come back from—even for an established brand—which is why it’s critical that DevOps and security teams work together throughout the development pipeline to secure applications.

Code Should Be Secured

A total of 44 per cent of developers cannot code securely. That’s nearly half! Developers need to work with security teams to scan code for malicious content, constantly.

Malicious code can be injected at any time in the building process. Why would a hacker wait for a finished product to hack, when they could add a small line of code during development that acts as a back door. But only developers who know what to look for during the development process will be able to combat this potential threat.

Patterns for design to help developers write safe code should be set for all members of the DevOps team. This includes any and all code that will keep applications secure for the user and the network. Preventing abuse can only happen if DevOps and Security work together.

Security Should Be in Every Stage of the Deployment Pipeline

I know security isn’t a sexy topic, but agile development to meet evolving customer needs is at the core of digital transformation so security must be too. Continuous deployment pipelines open doors to a larger area of attack to include your production system, the build, testing and the deployment environment. Because of this, security should be implemented at every stage of your deployment pipeline. This is the only way to secure your pipeline from outside attacks as well as insider attacks. Security measures can be used to ensure all changes are transparent and completely traceable. The only way to ensure code and applications remain untouched by unauthorized hands is to infuse security into the pipeline, from start to finish.

DevOps and security together will bring about the best outcome for your enterprise. From protecting your code to ensuring your deployment pipeline is safe, you will be able to move just as fast with security as you thought you could without it. It’s time we embrace DevOps and security together, instead of keeping them apart.