SecDevOps: Definition, Challenges, and Best Practices

What Is SecDevOps? 

SecDevOps integrates security into the DevOps process, ensuring that security is a primary consideration throughout the software development lifecycle. It aims to create a seamless blend of development, security, and operations, minimizing vulnerabilities and enhancing software security. 

This approach encourages all team members to take responsibility for security measures, implementing them early in the development phase. It helps in identifying and addressing security issues much earlier than traditional methods, reducing the potential for significant vulnerabilities in the final product.

The philosophy behind SecDevOps is to automate security protocols where possible, incorporating tools and practices that allow for the continuous monitoring and detection of security concerns.

Recommended Reading: 4 Types of Cyber Threat Intelligence and Using Them Effectively.

SecDevOps vs. DevSecOps: What Is the Difference? 

Although SecDevOps and DevSecOps are often used interchangeably, subtle distinctions exist between the two concepts. Both aim to achieve a similar goal of embedding security within the development life cycle but differ in their starting points and emphasis.

DevSecOps emphasizes integrating security practices within the DevOps process, with a particular focus on the operational and development sides working together to incorporate security. It suggests adding security into the existing DevOps practices.

SecDevOps suggests a slightly different focus by placing security as the primary concern, before development and operational practices. This implies that security considerations could lead the development process, influencing decisions and methodologies from the outset. 

Why Is SecDevOps Important? 

SecDevOps addresses the constantly evolving nature of cyber threats, making it useful for organizations aiming to protect their digital assets. By embedding security into the initial stages of the development process, teams can reduce the risk of major security breaches, which may be costly to rectify and can harm an organization’s reputation and customer trust.

A SecDevOps approach also bridges the gap between development and security teams. It’s a collaborative ethos that prevents security considerations from impeding the development timeline. It ensures that security measures and resilience are thoroughly integrated into the product.

SecDevOps Challenges 

Before implementing a SecDevOps approach, it’s important to understand the challenges that may arise.

Cultural Shift 

Implementing SecDevOps requires a significant cultural shift among testing and development teams. Traditionally, these teams have operated with distinct objectives and timelines. Development teams have focused on delivering features and functionality quickly, while testing teams have concentrated on identifying bugs and issues, often at the end of the development cycle. These teams must adopt a security-first mindset and may resist the change.

Adapting to New Goals, Metrics, and Outputs

The integration of SecDevOps into an organization introduces new goals, metrics, and outputs that differ from traditional development processes. These changes require teams to adjust their performance indicators, focusing not just on speed and functionality, but also on the security of the end product. 

Metrics such as the number of vulnerabilities discovered, the time taken to address security issues, and the impact of security practices on development time become crucial. Adapting to these metrics involves training and a shift in mindset.

Integrating Tools with CI/CD Pipelines

Incorporating security tools into continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines presents a technical challenge. Tools for automated code scanning, security testing, and vulnerability detection must be seamlessly integrated into the CI/CD process without disrupting workflows or causing significant delays. 

This requires careful selection of tools that are compatible with existing systems and can be automated to run as part of the code deployment process. It also involves ongoing maintenance to ensure these tools remain effective and do not become bottlenecks.

Managing Alerts and Vulnerabilities

A key challenge in SecDevOps is effectively managing the alerts and vulnerabilities identified by automated tools. The high volume of alerts generated by security scanning tools can overwhelm teams if not managed properly. Prioritizing these alerts, differentiating false positives from actual threats, and efficiently addressing vulnerabilities are crucial tasks. 

This requires robust processes and often dedicated personnel to triage alerts, ensuring that critical issues are addressed promptly and do not impede development progress.

Integrating Dynamic and Static Security Tests into Agile Processes

Incorporating both dynamic (DAST) and static (SAST) security testing into agile development processes poses logistical challenges. Agile methodologies emphasize flexibility and speed, which can conflict with the thoroughness required in security testing. 

To overcome this, teams must integrate these security tests early in the development cycle and ensure they are conducted iteratively, in line with agile principles. This integration demands careful planning and the use of tools that can automate much of the testing process, providing feedback quickly to minimize disruption to the development workflow.

SecDevOps Best Practices 

Here are some best practices for implementing a SecDevOps approach.

Define Security Policies for Developers

Security policies provide developers with guidelines on secure coding practices, dependency management, and vulnerability reporting. By setting these expectations early, developers can incorporate security considerations into their work from the outset, reducing the risk of introducing vulnerabilities into the codebase.

These policies also act as a reference point for ongoing security efforts, ensuring consistency and compliance across development tasks and projects.

Security Training

Training programs should cover secure coding practices, threat modeling, and how to use security testing tools effectively. This education enables developers to identify and mitigate security risks during the coding process, contributing to a more secure end product. Ongoing training and awareness programs help keep development activities focused on security. 

Incorporate Version Control Tools and Practices 

Version control allows teams to track changes to the codebase, collaborate efficiently, and revert to previous versions if a security issue is detected. Integrating security scanning tools within version control systems enables automated scanning of code for vulnerabilities at every commit, identifying and addressing security issues in real time.

Version control practices also facilitate better documentation and accountability, making it easier to audit changes and investigate issues. This practice is critical for maintaining the integrity and security of the software development process.

Integrate Static and Dynamic Tests into the CI/CD Pipeline

Integrating both SAST and DAST into the CI/CD pipeline is fundamental for catching different types of vulnerabilities at various stages of the development process. By incorporating these tests into the pipeline, teams ensure that security assessments are performed automatically and regularly, minimizing the manual effort required and enabling immediate feedback to developers. 

This practice accelerates the identification and remediation of security issues, and also ensures that security testing keeps pace with rapid development cycles.

Include Software Composition Analysis

Software Composition Analysis (SCA) involves analyzing open-source components and libraries used within an application for known vulnerabilities. Given the heavy reliance on open-source software in modern development, SCA helps identify and address security risks posed by third-party components. 

Best practices include running SCA tools as part of the CI/CD pipeline to automatically detect outdated libraries or those with known vulnerabilities. By doing so, development teams can be alerted to potential security issues early in the development process, allowing for timely updates or replacement of the vulnerable components. 

Automate Standard Processes

Automation reduces human error and increases the efficiency of security practices. Automating tasks such as code scanning, vulnerability assessments, and compliance checks ensures these actions are consistently performed without adding to the workload of development or security teams. Automation should also be used to rapidly and consistently deploy patches and security updates.

Exabeam Platform Capabilities: SIEM, UEBA, SOAR, Insider Threats, Compliance, TDIR

The Exabeam Security Operations Platform applies AI and automation to security operations workflows for a holistic approach to combating cyberthreats, delivering the most effective threat detection, investigation, and response (TDIR): 

• AI-driven detections pinpoint high-risk threats by learning normal behavior of users and entities, and prioritizing threats with context-aware risk scoring. 
• Automated investigations simplify security operations, correlating disparate data to create threat timelines. 
• Playbooks document workflows and standardize activity to speed investigation and response. 
• Visualizations map coverage against the most strategic outcomes and frameworks to close data and detection gaps. 

With these capabilities, Exabeam empowers security operations teams to achieve faster, more accurate, and consistent TDIR.