How to bolster vulnerability management with DevSecOps
Some argue that there is little or no difference between a vulnerability and a bug. But while vulnerabilities and bugs are both errors in code that are probably not intentional, there are important differences.
Some software bugs may never appear in production because the conditions that trigger them are highly unlikely. Vulnerabilities, on the other hand, are a specific type of bug characterized by two main characteristics:
- They can be triggered by a conscious action from the outside.
- They can be exploited to compromise information or application security.
This is the difference that DevSecOps – and development organizations – need to grapple with.
Define DevSecOps
DevSecOps is a set of tools and practices that enable an organization to introduce security as a requirement early in the software development pipeline and delivery lifecycle.
The DevSecOps model considers security to be as important as achieving application goals and adhering to compliance policies. By making everyone responsible for security—from design to coding to testing and deployment—DevSecOps reduces the risk of security issues creeping into software and going undetected until it’s too late.
The goal of DevSecOps is to encourage team thinking to eliminate vulnerabilities. While some organizations may hold an individual or small team accountable for DevSecOps tools and practices, their role should be to coordinate vulnerability management and not act as the sole practitioner. In most successful DevSecOps implementations, the teams supporting the development pipeline provide the bulk of the resources.
DevSecOps best practices for vulnerability management
Due to the distributed nature of DevSecOps, following established practices and procedures is critical. Each step in the pipeline must be hardened to minimize overall risk and avoid introducing new vulnerabilities by not adopting best practices. Document everything with clear role distribution and optimal tool support across the entire software development lifecycle (SDLC).
Improve security with SDLC modernization
The first step in adopting DevSecOps is to secure the SDLC itself so that vulnerabilities are not introduced through poor organization and control of development, testing and deployment. Most organizations should start using modern tools and paradigms like GitOps, containers, and Kubernetes at every step. Don’t start considering specialized DevSecOps tools or practices until lifecycle processing is up to speed.
Focus on modern tools, because development pipelines, rapid development, and similar initiatives aimed at reducing the delay between initiating a software change and releasing it to production have themselves created risks. Sloppy practices can result in minimally tested—or even untested—software moving through the pipeline. Without a strong, tool-enforced methodology at each stage, it’s difficult to ensure teams are using DevSecOps practices and tools properly.
Use specialized tools for vulnerability management
If modern development pipelines were sufficient to fix vulnerabilities themselves, there would be no need for DevSecOps. The next step is to introduce additional vulnerability-focused security into the SDLC.
Look for DevSecOps tools in the following areas:
- SDLC monitoring, version control and development. If you can’t get the right code into production, you can’t control vulnerabilities. Look for development tools that provide sample code, reusable code snippets, and version tracking.
- API management and documentation. The former encourages building APIs with greater security, and the latter helps ensure protections are not lost when changes are made.
- Testing and test audit. These tools assess code quality and vulnerabilities at the same time as performance and functionality.
- Production release management and pre-release validation. These tools represent an organization’s last line of defense, connecting DevSecOps measures with real-world cyber threats.
Regularly scan code, including libraries, for vulnerabilities
Many organizations that adopt DevSecOps conduct code reviews – for compliance or other reasons. Add a vulnerability assessment to these reviews for successful vulnerability management. If your organization does not currently mandate such a review, research existing code review tools and practices to find one that suits your organization, then initiate the request and train staff in the process.
Library management is a critical element of DevSecOps in the development phase. Because successful exploits often mean a chance to break into multiple systems, hackers tend to work hard to attack library code. Therefore, allowing developers to simply adopt software libraries is risky.
At a minimum, developers should keep inventories of which libraries they use for all software, and organizations should assign a team member to monitor each library item for reported vulnerabilities. If more security is needed, introduce requirements to get permission to add a new library item to inventory and add a vulnerability status check and test for each item. Specialized DevSecOps tools for software composition analysis help here.
Testing for vulnerabilities vs. bugs
Testing is essential to DevOps, and DevSecOps is no exception. But in DevSecOps, it’s important to distinguish between bug avoidance and vulnerabilities.
Traditional software testing attempts to replicate user behavior by presenting all combinations of data for a given message set. However, when looking for vulnerabilities, developers should also test how to deal with unexpected structures, such as e.g. B. bad messages, to increase the probability of discovering a vulnerability.
Dynamic application security testing mimics what a hacker might do when trying to break into a system, rather than generating masses of test messages. As a result, these tests could miss unusual attack vectors.
Interactive Application Security Testing (IAST) tools validate APIs and web interfaces, monitor interactions to create model behaviors, and detect vulnerabilities missed by brute-force testing with random data. Some DevSecOps teams prefer to run these tests first and others last; The best strategy usually depends on the complexity of the interfaces. The more complex the interface or API, the more likely IAST will be useful in the early stages.
Since libraries are a major source of vulnerabilities, code containing library items, in particular, requires new, special attention. However, organizations in sectors that are often targeted by hackers—such as financial services, government, and utilities—should rigorously test any new code for vulnerabilities.
How much special software is required for DevSecOps is an open question. But few discuss the importance of establishing a DevSecOps process, training all staff along the SDLC in vulnerability management, and conducting formalized security reviews—typically supported by a central DevSecOps coordinator. Without these measures, the rapid development can easily become an invitation to hack.