Embracing Security as Code

Everything is smooth until it isn't because we traditionally tend to handle the security stuff at the end of the development lifecycle, which adds cost and time to fix those discovered security issues and causes delays.
Over the years, software development has evolved to agile and automatic, but how we handle security hasn't changed much: security isn't tackled until the last minute.
Since we tend to do security only once, in the end, we usually wouldn't bother automating our security tests.
Shifting security to the left is more of a change in the mindset; what's more important is the automation, because it's the driving force and the key to achieving a better security model: without proper automation, it's difficult, if not impossible at all, to add security checks and tests at every stage of the SDLC without introducing unnecessary costs or delays.
Security as Code is the practice of building and integrating security into tools and workflows by identifying places where security checks, tests, and gates may be included.
For those tests and checks to run automatically on every code commit, we should define security policies, tests, and scans as code in the pipelines.
The key differences between Security as Code/DevSecOps and the traditional way of handling security are shifting left and automation: we try to define security in the early stages of SDLC and tackle it in every stage automatically.
First of all, efficiency-boosting: security requirements are defined early at the beginning of a project when shifting left, which means there won't be major rework in the late stage of the project with clearly defined requirements in the first place, and there won't be a dedicated security stage before the release.
The components of Security as Code for application development are automated security tests, automated security scans, automated security policies, and IaC security.
Automated security scans: we can integrate security scans CI/CD pipelines so that they can be triggered automatically and can be reused across different environments and projects.
We can use IaC to ensure the same security configs and best practices are applied across all environments, and we can use Security as Code measures to make sure the infrastructure code itself is secure.
We integrate security tests and checks within the IaC pipeline, as with the ggshield security scanner for your Terraform code.
First of all, since Security as Code and DevSecOps are all about shifting left, which is not only a change of how and when we do things, but more importantly, a change of the mindset, the very first best practice for Security as Code and DewvSecOps is to build a security-first mindset.
Having automated security policies as checks can only help so much if the automated security policies themselves aren't of high quality, or worse, the results can't reach the team.
First of all, we need to balance speed and security when implementing Security as Code/DevSecOps.
Yes, I know, earlier that we mentioned how security is job zero and how doing DevSecOps actually speeds things up, but still, implementing Security as Code in the early stages of the SDLC still costs some time upfront, and this is one of the balances we need to consider carefully, to which, unfortunately there is no one-size-fits-all answer.
Security as Code is the practice of building and integrating security into tools and workflows by defining security policies, tests, and scans as code.
DevSecOps focuses on automated security tests and checks, whereas secure coding is the practice of developing computer software in such a way that guards against the accidental introduction of security vulnerabilities.
IaC security uses the security as a code approach to enhance infrastructure code.
Consistent cloud security policies can be embedded into the infrastructure code itself and the pipelines to reduce security risks.


This Cyber News was published on feeds.dzone.com. Publication date: Wed, 27 Dec 2023 15:13:07 +0000


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