The practice of DevSecOps integrates security practices into traditional DevOps procedures.
The Shift Left DevSecOps initiative is designed to introduce security tools at the earliest stage of the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) as possible. This means protecting code from its inception, to the code that runs in your pipeline and wider environment.
Shift Left is essential to delivering secure code and identifying security risks, bugs, license risks and other issues proactively and remediating them.
By following this process, the level of security risk is minimised. It also encourages security-oriented code development.
Successful DevSecOps introduces security gates including SAST, OSS and Container Scanning Tools. DevOps teams can then carry out security scans during different phases in their SDLC. This identifies common threats teams should be aware of, allowing them to program securely. DevOps teams, meanwhile, can design pipelines that are security oriented.
Though the SDLC is already used by many teams, a further shift left is recommended. This is achieved by introducing Application Discovery if the team is familiar with DevOps procedures. Alternatively, teams can use Threat Modelling at the planning stage.
This helps to understand the threats that the application could have and tailor tools to work more effectively with given projects. As a result, false positives are identified more effectively and minimised.
RiverSafe has worked on several projects offering comprehensive DevSecOps support to ensure that Shift Left projects are successful.
