DevSecOps: Why it’s critical for secure innovation in the cloud

Worldwide IT spending is projected to total $4.5 trillion in 2022, an increase of 5.1% from 2021, according to Gartner. A large part of this involves cloud migration: by 2025, for example, half of enterprise IT will shift to the cloud.

Cloud computing presents big challenges for businesses, because most security tools and approaches weren’t made for the cloud. In turn, this places a burden on security staff who need to wade through huge logs, excessive alerts, and disparate tools given the underlying infrastructure is more complex. However, cloud computing also presents opportunities; including the ability to scale as needed at pace, and work on longer term projects.

In multi-cloud or hybrid cloud environments, applications and data are spread across different infrastructures and systems, making them more vulnerable to internal and external threats. Security teams are therefore faced with the uphill battle of ensuring all aspects of the pipeline and software supply chain are secure.

Ensuring that DevOps teams can work efficiently without sacrificing security is fundamental for many organisations – and key for creating competitive differentiation today. DevOps teams can be held back by traditional security policies and approaches, creating friction between security and development teams.

The situation is compounded by the fact that there is a current skills shortage in the cybersecurity field. Companies cannot always find or retain the talent they need to ensure that the use of public cloud is both secure and efficient.

So, how can organisations innovate safely in cloud environments while simultaneously reducing the burden on their IT teams?

Enter DevSecOps

Implementing a DevSecOps approach is essential for most, if not all companies across every sector. A practice that enables the continued collaboration between developers, operations and security professionals, it ensures that everyone in the software development process is accountable for security from the beginning, rather than it being an afterthought. The move towards DevSecOps is a positive one, but it has not been without its challenges. Its adoption has been relatively slow in real terms. In the ANZ market, for example, less than half of organisations have adopted a DevSecOps approach; with only 36 percent of organisations making plans to make the transition this year.

At Lacework, we’ve invested heavily in innovating to enable security to become an intrinsic part of DevOps transformation. From the outset, collaboration and buy-in from teams is essential for getting DevSecOps right. As part of this, fostering an understanding that security needs to be a core focus throughout the entirety of the software lifecycle is key. The right tools and/ or platform can expedite this mindset and cultural evolution.

Choosing the right tools to remove friction

In order to successfully implement a DevSecOps approach, teams must have the ability to secure fast and safe deployments. To do this, they need early, automated, and continuous discovery of vulnerabilities in application code, container definitions and infrastructure (as) code.

Implementing automated cloud security helps to replace manual tasks and reduce friction. With these in place, developers can more effectively identify misconfigurations inherent in code before they have even committed, rather than mid-deployed during production.

An effective use of a DevSecOps approach and the right mix of tech tools can support an organisation in detecting anomalies, generating alerts, and triaging issues across platforms. This ultimately helps organisations build products quicker and ease the burden on stretched security teams, given that there’s less risk of vulnerabilities and misconfigurations being built into software and cloud infrastructure from the onset.

The future is DevSecOps

As safe innovation becomes key for creating a competitive advantage, we’ll continue to see security shifted left in the development process to ensure it becomes a standard facet of delivery.

Ultimately, DevSecOps has the power to help organisations move to the cloud and work on longer term, more impactful projects. While awareness of the power of DevSecOps is on the rise, there is now a responsibility to ensure its implementation is seamless through the right culture and tools.

The post DevSecOps: Why it’s critical for secure innovation in the cloud appeared first on JAXenter.