Simply put, DevSecOps is the practice of integrating security tests into every stage of the software delivery life cycle. It is an extension of the DevOps approach that we have discussed so far in this book. Using tools and processes, it promotes collaboration between development, operations, and security teams. This results in software artifacts that are not only operationally efficient to produce but also safe to be released in production, at any point in time. Similar to DevOps, DevSecOps also brings in a cultural shift around how we approach security in conventional software delivery processes. Security teams should no longer be seen as some form of resistance, but more as enablers of the adoption of security best practices in the organization.

Before we move further, I would like to clarify one point that you might be thinking of at this stage – the difference between DevOps and DevSecOps.

How is it different from DevOps?

The core idea behind DevOps is to get the application into the hands of the end user as fast as possible. While this revolves a lot around cultural transformations, automation tools, and processes, security can sometimes be left behind. Softwareteams often see security as an isolated process, or team, that comes into the picture only before a deployment. In some cases, these security clearances and processes might as well be completely overlooked, which is an even more critical situation to be in.

DevSecOps, on the other hand, aims to address this gap by ensuring a seamless integration of security practices into day-to-day development activities. Developers and operations team members work together with security professionals to share the responsibility of releasing secure artifacts to the end user every single time. This collaboration often results in the adoption of automations and tools that extend the current CI/CD processes used by these teams.

One important thing I would like to highlight here is that your DevSecOps success will be largely defined by how stable your DevOps foundations are. It can only be built on top of existing implementations of DevOps practices, such as continuous integration, operational procedures, and team culture. It is an approach to further amplify the returns of your DevOps investments and gain from the benefits offered by continuous security enforcement and validations.

To justify the need of adopting certain practices or ways of working, it’s important to analyze the benefits that come with it. We’ll discuss this next.

Key benefits of DevSecOps

There are a lot of areas that are positively influenced by the adoption of DevSecOps practices in the software development life cycle (SDLC). While every team’s mileage would vary, certain benefits apply to most teams. Let’s take a look.

Reduced time to market

Lack of security awareness and automated code validations can hamper the benefits you might achieve with the adoption of just DevOps. Along with releasing frequent code changes multiple times a day, DevSecOps ensures that software developers are safeguarded from unknown security risks that can result in a degraded end user experience and loss of trust. Reduction of time in security assessments automatically increases the software deployment rate.