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We dwell in an era of glitzy tools and technologies where technological advancements and innovations abound – one in which technology is transforming the underpinnings of human existence. However, along with the benefits of these tools and technologies, you'll experience certain downsides, as well.

With the surge in frequency and complexity of cyberattacks, securing your software development pipelines is more critical now than ever. To ensure the security and integrity of your applications, you should be adept at thwarting security threats and vulnerabilities often and from the outset.

DevSecOps integrates security practices into the DevOps workflow to create a seamless and secure pipeline from start to finish. In this article, you'll learn how to secure combined practices of continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines by integrating DevSecOps into the development pipeline and adhering to the recommended best practices.

Security as a Culture

Who is responsible for security on a day-to-day basis? Every employee in your organization. Organizations need to enforce this as a policy, but unfortunately, most don't. For DevSecOps to be successful, your organization should foster security as a culture.

A security culture implies that every employee in your organization – from board members to new joiners – embraces security and understands the implications of non-adherence to security policies and guidelines.

Organizations should "shift security left" to build accountability among the employees and test code according to secure coding guidelines and practices. Changes in culture and processes are imperative to implement DevSecOps in your organization and safeguard your CI/CD pipelines. You should embrace this change and take a strategic approach to implementation. Applying these concepts entails time and effort from the outset.

CI/CD Pipeline

The CI/CD pipeline is a core component of modern software development methodologies such as Agile and DevOps that encompasses a set of practices and automated processes to facilitate the delivery of iterative, reliable code and that supports agile development practices.

A CI/CD pipeline enables automating the build, test, and release processes, promoting code quality. The key benefits include:

• faster time-to-market
• rapid, continuous feedback loop
• improved code quality
• enhanced collaboration
• frequent deployments
• reduced cost
• reduced manual effort
• efficient, agile, and continuous improvement

In the CI/CD pipeline, developers identify potential bugs in the code early in the software development lifecycle (SDLC). By automating the test process, a CI/CD pipeline helps evaluate a wide range of critical aspects, from the performance of an application to its security.

Security Risks

Insecure Code, Dependencies, and Configuration

Your CI/CD pipeline may have security vulnerabilities if your developers don't follow secure coding best practices. Additionally, doing so might broaden the attack surface and make your application more susceptible to dangers like injection attacks and cross-site scripting (XSS).

The use of third-party libraries and components increases the risk even further. These dependencies can become a potential entry point for attackers if they aren't regularly updated or monitored. Improper configurations of your cloud platform, CI/CD tools, and weak access restrictions can also pose security threats.

Lack of Compliance

Failure to comply with security rules, regulations, and guidelines exposes an organization to potential legal and security risks. For this reason, you must include compliance criteria within your CI/CD pipeline to satisfy all of the security controls.

Lack of Proper Testing

Inadequate testing (with an inappropriate test environment or insufficient test coverage) could compromise security. Static code analysis, software composition analysis, and dynamic application security testing are just a few examples of the types of security testing required to identify and fix any vulnerabilities that may have crept into application code over time.

Inadequate Monitoring and Logging

Inadequate monitoring and logging are another concern, because it would make identifying security incidents, anomalies, and vulnerabilities challenging. Organizations should have proper visibility into the CI/CD pipeline to detect any early signs of security breaches.