Essential Things To Build A Robust DevOps Security
DevOps security is the combination of practices and implementing secure encryption inside the development pipeline. But some of us understand that only the DevSecOps model offers a safe environment. But security is essential for every development team.
Network security, hardening the cloud infrastructure, security compliances, and DevOps organization security are all critical points in the cloud environment. So, only the DevSecOps model does not provide complete protection. Everyone should follow best practices and maintain those practices regularly. However, we sometimes blindly rely on vendors and their security, especially in the cloud servers. But, you also have to keep some precautions to avoid data leaking.
In this article, we will learn about the tools and controls of DevOps security to know about the security layers in detail. So, let’s begin.
How to Prevent Data Leaking
Nowadays, it is not enough for developers only to know about the development stage but also to know how to protect the apps from unauthorized users. Because there is a lot of credential data that may exist in the app. Security breaches or data leaking may occur for using open-source tools.
So, the first thing is not to use anything from unknown sources. Do not open or download anything without its proper certification. Also, there are many DevOps tools and controls that do secret-keeping management inside the apps. Also, DevOps should hire experienced developers and engineers for security tasks. Following these simple steps can minimize data breaching or leaking from DevOps apps.
Tools for DevOps security
Some tools build a security layer into the testing, development, and deployment process. Here are some of those essential tools that help DevOps in security format.
Open Source Vulnerability Scanning
There are possibilities that open-source products can come up with vulnerabilities because they don’t have proper licenses or security practices. So, Open Source Vulnerability Scanning monitors all the dependency’s codebase. It also notifies the developers even after the security review.
Static and Dynamic Security Testing
Static testing refers to scanning and detecting the source code or potential threats. Static testing helps the developers to understand the weakness and write code by building strong security. Dynamic testing performs on the running apps for real threats. This scan typically scans the HTTP and HTML interfaces of web apps too.
Automation and Visualization Tools
Automation security tools automatically detect and repair vulnerabilities and configuration issues. They may range from IaC to cloud configuration management. And visualization tools help to view and share the security information between operations, developers, and DevOps.
Threat Modeling and Altering Tools
Threat modeling tools display a view of the possible threats from the attack surface. This allows for minimizing security exposure. Altering tools help the teams to quickly respond to security events. It is notified after the event to investigate and fix the apps.
These are some commonly used security tools helping the DevOps team to survive security breaches.
Checklist of DevOps Security
A checklist helps you to go through a process to enforce security in the environment. Also, the checklist will never let me miss any process. Those checklists are
Control Access
It is the best way to provide high-level access to authorized people only. The authorized persons will also look over the permissions to grant the access level management of others. This monitoring will help to detect any unauthorized access physically.
Visibility of Control
Control visibility helps the projects only to show a limited person. Also, those people can only view, they will not have any access to or edit those controls. Only the members who signed in with the organization can view those private projects.
Protect from Tampering
With so many policies, someone might use tampering to use the policies against themselves. So, there should be a repository and branch policies to ask permission for access. Here using forks will let the developers work freely without changing the original repository.
Reviewing Audit Logs
In the audit logs, you can see the summary of all the activities happening at that time. So, reviewing the audit logs will inform you about the suspicious activities and take action.
These checklists will help developers to review the current situation of overall security.
DevOps Security Controls
Some key DevOps security controls help the developers to minimize the key risk areas and actions. Those controls are –
Automated Scanning
There are both software and vulnerability scanning options that will help to find you the security configuration issues. Software scanning observes the codes of software and vulnerability to introduce any change or vulnerable activities in the environment.
Web Application Firewall
The firewall is like a security wall of apps or servers. It is a coding-based security filter between the app server and the app that filters unauthorized persons and removes them. A firewall is the initial prevention of security.
Software Dependency Management
Apps are built on open source libraries, middlewares, and APIs and each of them may contain vulnerabilities at some point. So, the dependency management control system manages and tracks the supporting components and libraries to remain aware.
App Performance Management
App performance management is a tool that manages and resolves any issues of productivity. If the app is not performing well, the management controls can address and solve those issues. This helps to maintain the productivity of that app.
These security controls help the developers to maintain the security level. But developers should be an expert to use security controls with tools.
Final Verdict
With the proper use of tools and controls, the DevOps team can build a proper defense for themselves. Still, there are countless ways to prevent upcoming security breaches. So, the developers have to keep updated on upcoming threats and get the DevOps apps prepared.
To do so, the DevOps team needs experienced developers who can provide security using both tools and controls. But providing security is not the end. You also need to maintain DevOps security practices like implementing the DevSecOps model, training the developers for security, etc.
