Why is DevSecOps so important?
Tags: devops, beginners, security, development
Published: 2022-07-09 17:22:11

DevSecOps are important in today's business environment to mitigate the increasing frequency of cyberattacks. 

By implementing security initiatives early and frequently, applications from different industries realize the following benefits: 


- Applications that manage highly `sensitive government information` are a constant target for malicious cyberattacks. Enhancing these applications with a security-centric development approach greatly reduces the chances of malicious entities finding and exploiting vulnerabilities. 
- DevSecOps is becoming the  `standard` for healthcare application design. As organizations need to be HIPAA compliant, a security-centric approach is increasingly becoming  clear that  the likelihood of disclosure or misuse of a patient's personal information is significantly reduced. 
- DevSecOps also supports development practices in the financial industry. As finance is a major target for cyberattacks today, developers are at the forefront of the DevSecOps model to limit the exposure of sensitive data  to cybercriminals.  

The status of IT infrastructure  has `changed exponentially` over the last decade. The move to agile cloud computing platforms, shared storage and data, and dynamic applications has brought significant benefits to organizations looking to thrive and grow through the use of advanced applications and services.
 
DevOps applications have skyrocketed in terms of speed, scalability, and functionality, but often `lack robust security and compliance`. 

That's why DevSecOps was introduced into the software development life cycle, putting `development, operations, and security  under one roof`. 

Hackers are always looking for the best way to deploy malware and other exploits. Imagine being able to inject malware into an application during the build process and discovering the malware only after the application has been distributed to thousands of customers. 

The damage to both the customer system and the company's reputation will be enormous, especially in a world where bad news spreads momentarily. 

For organizations involved in application development and distribution, it is imperative to consider security in addition to development and operation. 

The `integration of DevSecOps and DevOps` puts security at the forefront of all developers and network administrators when developing and deploying applications. 

## Overview of DevSecOps

DevSecOps (short for development, security, operations) automates the `integration of security into all phases of the software development lifecycle`, from initial design to integration, testing, deployment, and software delivery. 

DevSecOps represents the `natural and necessary evolution` of how development organizations approach security. 

Historically, security was connected to the software by another security team at the end of the development cycle  and  tested by another quality assurance team. 

This was manageable if software updates were released only once or twice a year. However, as software developers have adopted agile and DevOps techniques to shorten their software development cycle to weeks or  days,  traditional fixed approaches to security have created  unacceptable bottlenecks.

DevSecOps seamlessly `integrates application and infrastructure security` with agile and DevOps processes and tools. If it's easier, faster, and cheaper to fix, fix it when you encounter a security issue. 

In addition, DevSecOps is not the sole responsibility of security silos, but the responsibility of sharing application and infrastructure security between development, security, and IT operations teams. 

It enables `software, safer, faster` by automating the delivery of secure software without slowing down the software development cycle.


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