No-one walks around saying they don’t want to implement DevSecOps processes and workflows within their organization.
The benefits experienced by DevSecOps teams are immense, from accelerated product releases that give companies their competitive edge, to reduced risk by identifying and mitigating vulnerabilities faster and earlier in the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC). Shared responsibility and accountability across Development, Security and Operations teams enhances collaboration and consolidates vision, and automated processes add consistency and reduce the resource costs involved in manual security operations.
However, according to a recent Gartner report, one of the greatest challenges for DevSecOps is the disconnect between security teams and software engineers. This has become a huge stumbling block to achieving good security outcomes in software delivery.
Breaking down this issue in a more granular way, this article look at some of the barriers to developer adoption that Gartner has found organizations are experiencing in more detail, and how an application security platform should address these challenges to help you streamline your DevSecOps profile.
Prioritization: 41% of Organizations Feel Developers Choose Speed over Security
It’s a tale as old as time, security feels like a hurdle to innovation. This problem often occurs when security is placed as an afterthought, a checkbox item that features and updates need to go through in order to get to production. When security is seen to be negatively impacting developer velocity, it can be skipped or deprioritized in order to get products out the door, creating bottlenecks or opening the business up to risk.
To solve this issue, Gartner recommends that you “Adapt your security testing tools and processes to the developers, not the other way around.” This allows you to move work through the system far more rapidly, while still ensuring security and compliance are taken care of. Gartner’s advice includes:
- Shifting your mindset from one-time security gating to continuous security assurance processes.
- Ensuring you don’t make developers leave their native toolchain environment to implement security.
- Architecting security and compliance scanning to be performed automatically using APIs.
- Reinforcing simple testing integrated into the IDE for when developers need to scan custom code.
- Leveraging AI code assistants in SAST and SCA which can help developers implement fixes in natural language.
Capabilities: 37% Say Software Engineers Have Poor Security Skills and Knowledge
The simple truth is that security is not your developers’ job any more than writing code or developing new features is part of a security leader’s workload. Gartner advises against trying to turn developers into security experts. Developers have their own job to do and their own areas of expertise. Instead, by integrating training into developers’ day-to-day activities, they will build the basic knowledge necessary to do their part. Consider integrating bite-sized learning opportunities as part of developer workflows, and opportunities to learn that are contextual to their to-do list. According to Gartner, training platforms should offer hands-on integration and allow developers to practice and learn in a virtualized environment, tailored to their needs.
This is the same theory behind Codebashing, Checkmarx’ developer training solution. Instead of forcing developers to sit through static theoretical instruction which is hard to retain and developers may not engage with, we provide virtual environments where learners can practice and receive immediate feedback. Training is continuous, personalized, and crafted to provide role-specific knowledge that helps developers in their daily work. On top of this, guided remediation tools for SAST within the IDE act as “just-in-time” training, giving developers a chance to enhance their security skills within the tools they are already experts in using.
Expertise: 35% of Security Leaders Say There are Not Enough Security Experts in the Organization
Despite worldwide skills gaps, more than one third of security leaders are still looking for additional security experts in their companies, rather than working with what they have to ensure resilience and risk management.
According to Gartner, Security and Risk Management leaders should be guiding DevSecOps product owners to take greater responsibility over service monitoring, which will help them to become experts in the areas which they need to be. “DevSecOps teams should perform the frontline monitoring for their services/products spanning both operational and security monitoring. In the spirit of DevOps, “You code it; you own it.”
Technology and visibility are crucial here. If tools and platforms are siloed and disparate – developers cannot take this responsibility. Instead, at the application layer, detailed monitoring should occur through a single tool for security and operations so that Dev teams can put incident response in place and see the outcomes of their efforts, where related metrics return to business as usual or elements such as third-party packages are deemed secure. A source-code version control system is also essential, so that teams can fully understand the code’s provenance, as well as keep track of changes and authorizations, as well as any stakeholders who have been involved in these decisions and iterations.
Building DevSecOps Trust in Your Organization with Checkmarx
To manage the speed of development without adding risk to the organization, DevSecOps processes are now crucial. However, too many security leaders forget that developer engagement and developer adoption of security processes is a core part of this charge.
At Checkmarx, we recognize that you have more applications going through the software development lifecycle than ever before, and to keep developers involved and empowered, they need security processes to be integrated and automated — not an afterthought that stands in their way. Benefit from:
- A single, holistic platform for application security: From SAST and SCA, to secrets detection and IaC security, you’re secured from the first line of code to runtime in the cloud.
- Automation at the speed of development: Automatically run many of your security scans as applications move through the SDLC, so that developers can focus on core tasks.
- Security tools within the developer workflow: Bring security to where developers work, integrated into the IDE. Provide insights directly to them, using the tooling they are used to.
- Natural language guided remediation: Don’t confuse developers with security jargon and technical language. AI-based guided remediation explains what they need to fix in simple terms.
- Quick and easy integration: In just a few simple clicks, Checkmarx One integrates with the SDLC, supporting the widest number of programming languages, and more SDLC integrations out-of-the-box than any other.
According to Gartner, “successfully integrating security into DevOps to deliver “DevSecOps” requires changing mindsets, processes and technology.” By offering a complete platform for application security, built to provide developers with the integrated processes that make it easy for them to incorporate security into their roles — Checkmarx One covers three for three.
Looking to take Gartner’s advice and get developers involved at the frontlines of service monitoring? Speak to us about a demo of Checkmarx One.