As cyber threats become more advanced and frequent, it’s crucial for development and security teams to join forces. But what does this collaboration look like in practice?Â
How can we ensure security is embedded earlier and more efficiently in the release management plan?
What role will AI and machine learning play in streamlining security operations?
Get ready to discover the answers to these questions and more as we delve into the future of release management with DevSecOps in 2023.
But before that, let’s understand what DevSecOps entails.
What is DevSecOps Approach?
- DevSecOps aims to bridge the gap between development, security, and operations teams by incorporating security considerations and testing into every stage of the software development life cycle (SDLC).
- With DevSecOps, software teams can build, test, and deploy applications quickly while ensuring that security is not compromised.
- DevSecOps may include automated security testing tools, continuous monitoring and remediation, and the use of security-focused practices such as threat modeling and secure coding standards.
5 DevSecOps Trends To shape The Future of Application Security
IT enterprises shift focus to automation
IT enterprises are shifting their focus to automation leveraging for several reasons.
- Speed and Efficiency: Automation helps to speed up the software development process and reduce manual errors. This is particularly important for security tasks, which can be time-consuming and prone to human error.
- Improved Security: Automated tools used in the DevSecOps approach can detect and respond to security threats more quickly and accurately than manual processes. This helps to reduce the risk of successful attacks and improve overall security.
- Scalability: Automation enables organizations to scale security processes and tools as their software development practices grow. This helps to ensure consistent and comprehensive security coverage as the organization grows.
- Continuous Integration and Delivery (CI/CD): Automation is essential for integrating security into the CI/CD pipeline, which is becoming increasingly important as organizations adopt DevOps practices.
Container orchestration to gain prominence
By using container orchestration in the release management plan, IT enterprises can improve the security, portability, and efficiency of their application development and deployment processes, making it an important tool for DevSecOps.
- Portability and Flexibility: Containers allow applications to be packaged and deployed consistently across different environments, making it easier to manage and scale applications.
- Microservices Architecture: Containers are well-suited for microservices architecture, which is becoming increasingly popular for building complex, scalable applications.
Cloud-native technologies to grab the limelight
Cloud-native applications are software applications designed, built, and deployed specifically for cloud computing environments.
They utilize cloud-native technologies and principles, such as microservices architecture, containerization, and infrastructure as code (IaC), to take full advantage of the scalability, flexibility, and resilience of cloud computing.
- Flexibility: Cloud-native technologies provide a flexible and agile development environment, allowing organizations to quickly develop and deploy new features and applications.
- High Availability: Cloud native technologies are designed to ensure that applications are highly available, even in the face of failures or outages.
- Cost-effectiveness: Cloud native technologies can be more cost-effective than traditional on-premise solutions, as organizations only pay for the resources they use and do not have to invest in infrastructure and maintenance.
Increased emphasis on Security-as-code practices
Security-as-code (SAC) is a DevSecOps practice that involves treating security as a first-class citizen in the software development process.
This means that security is integrated into the development workflow from the beginning rather than being treated as a separate or after-the-fact concern.
SAC involves the use of code, scripts, and automation to manage security configurations, vulnerabilities, and policies.
Your release management plan should include SAC because of the following reasons:
- Reduced vulnerabilities: By treating security as a first-class concern in the development process, SAC helps to reduce the risk of security vulnerabilities and improve the overall security of applications.
- Consistency: SAC helps to ensure that security policies and configurations are consistently applied across different applications and environments, reducing the risk of misconfigurations and improving the overall security posture.
- Scalability: SAC enables organizations to scale security practices as their software development practices grow, ensuring that security remains a key concern as the organization grows.
Evolution of DevSecOps Practice
DevSecOps is expected to mature by becoming more tightly integrated with the SDLC and fully incorporating security into the CI/CD pipeline. This will likely involve the following developments:
- Advancements in the automation of security-centric tasks such as SAST (Static Application Security Testing), DAST (Dynamic Application Security Testing), and IAST (Interactive Application Security Testing).
- Adoption of advanced tech such as AI/ML to enhance security analysis and decision-making.
- Increased collaboration between development, security, and operations teams to foster a culture of security by design.
- Greater focus on security education and training to ensure your teams are equipped with the knowledge and skills needed to build secure systems.
Wrapping Up
DevSecOps is an innovative approach to software development that prioritizes the integration of security into the entire software development life cycle.
As organizations face increasing security risks and demands for faster application delivery, DevSecOps will play an essential role in ensuring that security is tightly integrated into the development process from the start.
In the future, DevSecOps will continue to evolve with the adoption of new technologies such as AI/ML, increased automation of security testing and remediation, and a stronger emphasis on collaboration between development, security, and operations teams.
By embracing DevSecOps principles and practices in the release management plan, organizations can develop secure applications with confidence, enhance their security posture, and stay ahead of emerging threats.
