eBook – Continuous Pipeline Security

Introduction

If DevSecOps was easy, then we wouldn’t even need to be talking about it, as we’d be protected from all vulnerabilities and we wouldn’t even have any Cyber attacks. Implementing a true DevOps strategy is hard, but a successful DevSecOps one is even harder. We know this from bitter experience with breaches at companies like Equifax, Marriott, Facebook and Google – which highlight the importance of discovering software vulnerabilities early.

DevSecOps is the philosophy of integrating security practices within the DevOps process. With a methodical approach, organizations can create and deliver a secure software pipeline, ensuring they mitigate any known vulnerabilities early on in their software development lifecycle. One of the biggest mistakes companies who haven’t adopted a holistic approach to DevSecOps make is to treat security as an afterthought. Security isn’t an isolated matter, and identifying vulnerabilities is inseparable from your software development lifecycle.

The continous growth in use of open source software by enterprises, exposes code bases to potential vulnerabilities and license compliance violations hidden in open source components. The question is… How do we continuously secure our software development and delivery ecosystem to mitigate these risks, particularly as the frequency and intensity of the attacks are increasing?

Eliminating vulnerabilities and ensuring license compliance has to be tightly integrated into your CI/CD pipeline to respond to them as early as possible. Integrated and continuous pipeline security is possible, but it needs the cooperation of the IT, development, security and operations teams.