The term DevSecOps stands for development, security, and operations. It is a software development model that promotes a continuous cycle of collaboration between teams throughout all phases of the software development lifecycle (SDLC). The goal is to enable faster release of high-quality and secure software.
A key component of DevSecOps is the introduction of a secure continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipeline, which utilizes automation and streamlined processes to increase development velocity. However, while DevOps models focus on practices that enable quick release of high-quality code, DevSecOps introduces security.
DevSecOps tools help closely integrate security with the CI/CD pipeline and automate as many security processes as possible. These tools help build security into the entire development lifecycle and eliminate the silos between DevOps and security. The implementation process often involves incorporating security best practices alongside security testing tools across all stages.
Here are the three main goals of DevSecOps tools:
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Automation is a key (and sometimes integral) part of the modern development pipeline. Automation helps DevSecOps teams introduce security throughout all development phases without slowing down the pipeline. Here are several automation tools for your DevSecOps pipeline:
CodeAI can automatically find and fix security vulnerabilities in your source code. To achieve this, CodeAI uses deep learning technology to help developers find issues and solutions to each security problem. QbitLogic—the vendor behind CodeAI—trained the solution using millions of actual bug-fix samples.
Parasoft provides a suite of tools that automate a wide range of development security testing aspects, including:
Ansible is an IT automation engine offered under an open-source license. You can use Ansible to significantly reduce the scope of repetitive, manual work. This level of automation can help you improve the consistency, reliability, and scalability of your IT environment.
Ansible can help you automate the following types of tasks:
StackStorm is a platform for runbook automation. It is event-driven and supports infrastructure as code (IoC). StackStorm uses “if-then” rules to simplify your workflows. Once a trigger event occurs, StackStorm checks the rules, runs relevant instructions, executes the appropriate commands, and provides the results.
StackStorm lets you compartmentalize small tasks, which you can then orchestrate into larger tasks. The tool has a variety of use cases for site reliability engineering (SRE) teams, such as automated remediation and security responses.
Container security technology can help ensure containers, container images, and related components are securely configured and free of vulnerabilities. Here are several container security tools:
Project Calico is an open-source project with an active development and user community. Calico Open Source was born out of this project and has grown to be the most widely adopted solution for container networking and security, powering 1.5M+ nodes daily across 166 countries.
Calico Open Source is a networking and security solution for containers, virtual machines, and native host-based workloads. Calico supports a broad range of platforms including Kubernetes, OpenShift, Docker EE, OpenStack, and bare metal services.
Clair ingests information from multiple vulnerability data sources, including CVE databases like Ubuntu CVE Tracker, Red Hat Security Data, and Debian Security Bug Tracker. Using this data, it performs comprehensive static analysis of container vulnerabilities.
Most publishers, including container repositories, use TLS to secure their communications with web servers. However, TLS does not help protect against compromised servers. If the server is compromised, TLS cannot prevent it from substituting legitimate content with malicious content. Notary can help prevent these issues from occurring.
The Notary project is based on The Update Framework (TUF), a secure design that helps solve software distribution and update problems. The tool lets publishers sign their content offline by using keys that are kept highly secure.
Cloud testing tools provide test environments especially for the cloud, including all requisite software-hardware configurations. Most cloud-based testing platforms offer integrations with DevSecOps tools and CI/CD workflows.
AppScan on Cloud provides a suite of security testing tools, such as dynamic, interactive, and static testing for mobile, open-source, and web applications. The tool can detect pervasive security vulnerabilities and facilitate remediation.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers a variety of security services. For example, their data protection offerings include encryption, key management, and continuous threat detection for your workloads and accounts. Additionally, AWS offers an identity management service that enables you to manage your identities, permissions, and resources at scale.
ThreatModeler aims to help enterprises effectively manage security risks. The solution offers a Cloud Edition that automatically builds threat models for your cloud infrastructures. It can manage potential threats for various clouds, including AWS and Microsoft Azure.
Several types of application security (AppSec) tools can help DevSecOps teams verify that applications are secure before releasing them to production:
Veracode Static Analysis is a SAST solution that can analyze software libraries in all major frameworks and languages without requiring access to the source code—making it possible to analyze proprietary code alongside components from external vendors.
Veracode provides an API, which lets you integrate static analysis with existing CI/CD tools. The solution also supports adding static analysis to IDEs, build systems, and task management systems. It provides a Pipeline Scan feature that lets you scan new code commits, identify and prioritize security flaws, and compare them to previous scans, to quickly identify which version introduced a new security issue.
CxSAST is a static analysis tool offered as part of the Checkmarx Software Exposure Platform. CxSAST aims to identify security vulnerabilities in custom code as well as open-source components. The tool supports more than 25 scripting and coding languages.
Here are notable features of CxSAST:
The SonarQube platform applies continuous inspection to manage code quality. It is an open-source tool that supports more than 25 programming languages and integrates with existing workflows. It displays the health of your application and highlights detected new issues. DevSecOps teams can use this tool to quickly detect and remediate code errors to ensure both security and quality.
Fortify WebInspect is a dynamic application security testing (DAST) tool that can help you find and prioritize exploitable vulnerabilities in your web applications.
Key features include:
New Relic provides an observability platform that lets you bring in data from various sources. It helps you use this data to gain a comprehensive understanding of your software and learn how to improve it.
Here are several key advantages of New Relic:
The ELK Stack includes three open-source tools—Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana (ELK). The stack can help you identify problems with servers or applications. Logstash can centralize your logging offers, Elasticsearch lets you search this data, and Kibana offers data visualization.
The three tools in the ELK Stack complement each other. Kibana can help you visualize Elasticsearch documents. You can use Kibana to create dashboards that offer interactive diagrams, view geospatial data, and employ graphs to visualize complex queries. In addition to visualization, Kibana also lets you search and interact with data kept in your Elasticsearch directories.
With Calico, security and observability are treated as code. This means that security and observability are wired into the application and travel with the application through all stages of the development lifecycle. Integrating this approach into your CI/CD pipeline empowers developers and software engineers to make and implement security decisions, rather than pushing those decisions out to a separate team downstream.
Calico enhances DevSecOps in the following ways:
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