DevSecOps has become a hot topic among the software development community. Some believe it is the cure for what ails them while others believe that it is just another flavor of DevSecOps Strategy. Like many processes, tools, and practices, it is neither good nor bad. Like any other process or tool, it needs to be used properly.
In the DevOps space, everyone is talking about Agile, Continuous Delivery, and DevSecOps Strategy, but few are asking the fundamental questions that need to be asked before you begin implementing DevOps. If you are thinking about implementing DevSecOps, the first thing you need to do is stop.
Before you start, you should ask yourself eight questions. These right questions will help you determine if DevSecOps is right for your organization.
1. Why is DevSecOps Important?
DevSecOps helps businesses deliver secure software faster. The advantage with DevSecOps Strategy customer conversations is that you can identify errors and bugs early and fix these issues during the development phase. This means that you can respond to changes faster. Not only that, it can improve communication and collaboration between different teams. It can remove bottlenecks from older security models and ensure smoother operations for your continuous integration and continuous delivery pipeline.
2. What Steps Are We Taking To Create A Security Culture In Your Organization?
This is important because if you don’t have a security culture in your organization, you will struggle to implement DevSecOps in your organisation. First, you must create a security culture. Here are some ways to do that.
- Increase employee awareness about cybersecurity
- Deploy threat intelligence solutions that can give you valuable insights
- Make cybersecurity a shared responsibility
- Reward employees that contribute towards security initiatives
- Make security fun and more engaging
- Build a security community
You should allocate a portion of your budget towards providing your employees with the right tools and resources to establish a security culture in your organization. Once the security culture is established, start your DevSecOps Strategy journey.
3. Where Does Friction Exist Between Business and Security Goals?
Traditionally, operations, development, and security teams work independently. They even have their own goals and strategies. DevSecOps changes that by bringing them together but what about their goals? Business and security leaders will have to sit together to remove friction between their goals.
Yes, this might not be easy but it is extremely important for the success of your DevSecOps journey. Make sure that your team goals are aligned with the organization’s overall objectives. Spend time in understanding the friction points and where they exist and take steps to remove all the obstacles to build security into their processes.
4. Are We Measuring The Right Security Metrics?
Another mistake most businesses make when they are implementing DevSecOps is that they choose the wrong metrics and start measuring them. As a result, they could never get an accurate picture of their performance and progress. That is why it is important to ask yourself if you are tracking the right benchmarks or not..
Look at each metric from the organization’s context instead of just looking at the security perspective. Review your metrics on a regular basis and reflect back to identify what’s working and what’s not. Do all these metrics really give you a clear picture of the risk and security? If yes, you are on the right track. If the answer is no, you need to rethink your metrics selection.
5. Do Our Security Policies and Tools Align With The Way People Work?
As more and more businesses embraced remote work due to this pandemic, businesses were forced to pivot and adapt. This also means that they have to change their security policies as well as the tools to coincide with the remote work trend. You need to provide employees with the right communication and collaboration tools and design security policies that facilitate remote workers while keeping your business safe.
With businesses shifting from buying dedicated server hosting to cloud infrastructure, your security policies should focus on addressing cloud security challenges. Take a look at your security policies and controls to find what needs to be changed to stay relevant in today’s remote work era.
6. Is Security an Integral Part of Software Development Lifecycle and Business Processes?
If you are serious about implementing DevSecOps in your company, you will have to bake it into every business process and stage of the software development lifecycle. If you are still treating security as a separate phase that comes after development, you will struggle with DevSecOps implementation.
Once security becomes an integral part of your processes, you can find and fix issues in real-time, which can save you from costly rework. Moreover, this will enable your business to deliver a more refined and flawless final product to your valued customers, which could have a positive impact on the user experience and customer satisfaction.
7. Are We Monitoring and Testing Security Vulnerabilities?
Do you have a mechanism to monitor security vulnerabilities? How do you test your software before delivering it to clients? If you already have the processes for testing and monitoring, the next question you must answer would be what methodologies do you follow to fix bugs? You don’t want your product to contain software vulnerabilities as it can not only put your users at risk but can have a negative impact on your business reputation and customer trust in your brand.
8. Are We Taking Security Shortcuts To Bring Products Faster to the Market?
With businesses participating in the race of bringing products faster to the market so they can gain a competitive advantage, they tend to ignore or give less importance to security. Instead of making it an integral part of the process, they shrink the security, testing, and quality assurance phase which comes to haunt them in the long run. If you are serious about DevSecOps implementation, you should not do that. Make security a priority even if you have to delay the delivery.
Which questions do you answer before creating a DevSecOps strategy for your business?
