Five Stumbling Blocks Enterprises Must Overcome to Deploy DevSecOps

Despite the growing use of DevOps, many organizations continue to experience cultural problems that limit the influence of security professionals in DevSecOps processes, which are crucial for creating next-generation cloud apps and services.

DevSecOps emphasize the importance of enhanced communication between development, operations, and security. All teams’ contributions are continuously integrated at each stage of the process. The ultimate goal is to transition into an automated, synchronized world that eliminates the majority of manual tasks.

There are several advantages to incorporating security into DevOps, from higher sales and reduced costs to quicker delivery and more effective compliance. Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as flicking fingers and watching this new security strategy take off. Firms will face a variety of obstacles; therefore, it’s critical that they can recognize them within the organization and effectively solve them.

A number of challenges arise when implementing DevSecOps, some of which are outlined here.

Juggling security and speed

Every team, including security, must keep pace with DevOps’ emphasis on agility and speed in order to keep the innovation engine driving. Building an agile, adaptable, and quick security foundation is necessary to keep up with DevOps. The rate of development and deployment is slowed down by obsolete security tools and procedures that are not adequate for the task of securing deployments.

Also Read: Top Ways to Embrace Innovation-First Approach without Compromising Security

Lack of skills

The formal security expertise required by some DevSecOps approaches is not available among developers. Implementing DevSecOps will be difficult without that understanding. Formal internal training can increase awareness and provide more experienced personnel the chance to assist less experienced ones. However, companies should invest in self-paced online courses and specialized outside training organizations in addition to relying only on their own expertise to bring everyone up to speed.

Technological overkill

DevSecOps aggressively promotes the use of tools; however, when security and other teams have different tool sets, issues might occur. The increasingly complicated technologies available will be complex for developers to choose from or even utilize because of a lack of standards, documentation, and training. Not to mention that it may be difficult and time-consuming to integrate the technologies they do select into the DevOps pipeline.

To make tool selection and usage easier and to better document which devices are being employed, firms must encourage their teams to adopt tool standards and usage guidelines. This would clarify the suggested security settings for tools, which would help with configuration management challenges and expedite integration by getting everyone on the same page.

Inadequate knowledge

Professional growth and education are equally crucial, in addition to cultural preparations.

According to Security Compass’s 2021 State of DevSecOps report, 38% of respondents named compliance and security education and awareness as one of the most significant implementation issues for DevSecOps.

Organizations can begin with formal internal training to increase security awareness among their staff. The most seasoned security experts should mentor other team members to assist them in enhancing their security game. Finally, businesses should offer online training to their engineers. They can view them whenever it’s convenient for them in order to understand specific security-related techniques.

Also Read: Five Major Trends that will Transform Cybersecurity Landscape in 2023

Dearth of integration with AppSec tools

The majority of DevOps toolchains are made up of components from several manufacturers. Teams select the technologies that best meet their needs for Source Code Management (SCM), Continuous Integration (CI), build tools, test automation, binary repositories, and trouble ticketing. Thanks to pre-made connections and APIs, it is comparatively simple to merge everything into a well-oiled DevOps engine.

But when teams attempt to incorporate several AppSec solutions into the mix, they frequently discover that this mix-and-match strategy is more challenging. Static Application Security Testing (SAST), Software Composition Analysis (SCA), and some types of dynamic testing tools are typically required for security analysis.