DevOps security is a practice of protecting the DevOps environment through technology, processes, policies, and strategies. Cloud workload refers to an application, database, web server, or container, while the cloud environment requires you to design, release, build, and test security in every part of the DevOps lifecycle. This article discusses how to protect your workload with DevOps security.
Security Verification
It refers to methods of testing an application’s security controls. Developers need to test the application security to protect it from vulnerabilities. It is a crucial part of every development cycle. Some of the security verification methods followed in DevOps are:
- Reviewing the software code for security lapses
- Testing each software component of the application so that it cannot be misused
- Assign right permission to different software components during configuration
- Constant monitoring of software components and processes for inappropriate data extraction, infiltration, and tampering
Automation of Security
DevOps often modify and push the code in a very short time frame. This makes it difficult for the security team to keep up with the changes leading to increased security risks.
The security tools used in the DevOps environment are programmed to check configuration, scan for vulnerabilities, and analyze the code for security loopholes. In the absence of automation of security tools, the output is affected.
The applications are dramatically slow or exposed to a variety of threats to a lack of proper security. In practice, failure to run security tools leads to misconfigurations, inadvertent vulnerabilities, insecure code, and several weaknesses that hackers can exploit.[adsense]
Integrate Security in the R&D Process
DevOps focuses on integrating security in the R&D process. It refers to the addition of security tools as building blocks of the CI pipeline. This practice ensures both DevOps and R&D are responsible for the security of the cloud application. The shared responsibility enhances confidence as security verification is performed continuously.
Due to these factors, organizations are confident about every software build that passes specific criteria. The best practices eliminate the need to wait for the release to perform security testing of the applications. It also reduces the changes in modifying the code later to plug in security loopholes.
In the production environment, the product team works separately to develop the cloud application.
Breaks Security into Manageable Tasks
Once the security requirements of cloud workload are identified, the DevOps security practices break into manageable tasks. DevOps consider security as one of the technical features of the cloud application/workload. Hence, a security review is part of the commit procedure. The cloud deployment process includes a review process that ensures the cloud application meets security expectations.
The review is conducted by professionals who are part of the team designing security procedures and protocols to protect the cloud workload. Since the engineers are part of the security team, they can identify potential problems early on. It is also possible for the security team to provide a comprehensive cloud security solution that offers flow visibility and contextual relationships between different cloud applications.
To sum up, these are some of the ways in which security works to protect cloud workloads and DevOps environments.
