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Category: DevSecOps

  • Zero-Trust Network Access Platforms Slash DevOps Bottlenecks

    Zero-Trust Network Access Platforms Slash DevOps Bottlenecks

    In a prior article, I indicated why a new remote zero-trust platform is needed to support DevOps teams.

    Traditional remote access configurations are not well-suited for DevOps given a shifting user population comprised of employees, contractors and other third parties often using their own devices; the large number of tools and systems to which access must be provided and the hybrid nature of the infrastructure itself (on-premises, hybrid and multi-cloud).

    DevOps Pain Points

    Three pain points are associated with traditional approaches when used with DevOps.

    1. DevOps user experience is poor in traditional remote access configurations. Each DevOps service must be accessed as separate secured sessions, which is confusing and tedious.
    2. System management requires IP whitelisting rules in VPN, static SSH keys in Bastion, firewall rules controlled by different teams and application-specific authentication. The coordination and execution of so many touchpoints for common actions—including the onboarding of new team members, changing roles or adding a new service—invites mistakes that cause productivity issues and introduces unforeseen security holes.
    3. Security is complex and error-prone. DevOps users must be granted restricted access to the individual services they need to be productive. Administering restricted access for individuals and groups is time-consuming. Security policies typically require monitoring detailed audit logs of user access.

    How a Zero-Trust Remote Access Platform Works with DevOps

    In my whitepaper, Zero-Trust-Remote Access-For-DevOps, I explain how a zero-trust remote access platform can resolve the requirements for improved DevOps user experience, consistent and manageable administration and simplified, less error-prone security.

    Improved DevOps User Experience

    By replacing the need for the user to tediously set up separate sessions for each DevOps service they need to use, a client-side DevOps service catalog enables all DevOps services to be accessed with a single click. This service catalog approach is more convenient for DevOps users and provides a form of DevOps governance. It does this by encouraging DevOps teams to select choices that are available in the catalog instead of creating new choices that result in expensive DevOps tool sprawl.

    Simplified DevOps Management

    Management of remote DevOps users is simplified by consolidating access for all DevOps users and services under a single unified service manager and connector. The need to manage each user and service with different teams, each with their own processes, is unified and streamlined when the management requirements for DevOps users and services are consolidated under a common zero-trust remote access platform.

    In addition, this approach makes it much easier to implement more adaptive policies across the breadth of users and services.

    With a zero-trust remote access platform, onboarding new DevOps users and groups is accomplished within a single session—not separate sessions for each onboarding requirement.

    Simplified and Less Error-Prone Security

    Consolidating access to DevOps services under a common zero-trust remote access platform with unified services and services connectors enables simplified and less error-prone security controls, improved security monitoring and policy management. Audit logs of access are reported consistently for all services. Monitoring and changing access rules can be supported for individuals or groups when adjusting a policy. Trust-based access controls can be implemented consistently. Granular policies ensure access is predicated on appropriate device trust score thresholds being met. Rather than a single check prior to granting access, these production services policies continuously assess the security of the users and devices accessing the services.

    Transforming to a Zero-Trust Remote Access platform for DevOps

    Transformations of all types, and especially those for DevOps, are made more certain by following a
    seven-step transformation process, described in my book Engineering DevOps. This process serves as a framework for implementing the zero-trust remote access platform.

    The first two steps, vision and team alignment, involve getting the leaders, key influencers and implementers of an organization to recognize and establish actionable goals for the implementation of the zero-trust remote access platform.

    The third step, assessment, requires taking inventory of the current state of DevOps users, DevOps services and policies that need to be supported by the new platform.

    The fourth step, road map, requires determining the plan for implementation. Typically, it makes sense to start with one application. Start with a set of DevOps users and DevOps services needed for a single application or pipeline which can serve as a model to drive adoption to other applications as the solution is proved and accepted.

    The fifth step, realize, is the step in which the zero-trust remote access platform is installed and set up for the initial model application or pipeline. Banyan Security explains how an example tool vendor helps to simplify this step.

    Capabilities to look in for in zero-trust remote access tools include:

    • Deploys in minutes, with no integration requirements on any existing DevOps services or infrastructure.
    • No need to set up VPNs, open inbound firewall ports or manage DNS.
    • Use existing DevOps user devices without diminishing security.
    • DevOps service catalog provides users visibility and one-click access to DevOps services.
    • Support for bundled services, favorites, and autorun capabilities.

    In step six, operationalize, the procedures for commissioning and using the zero-trust remote access platform are proven, benefits are measured and playbooks are hardened for the organization.

    In step seven, expansion, the zero-trust remote access platform deployment is expanded to other DevOps applications pipelines, DevOps users and DevOps services across the enterprise.

    What This Means

    Traditional remote access configurations are not well suited for DevOps administrators or users given the dynamic nature of services, team members, and environments. A zero-trust remote access platform addresses the need for an improved DevOps admin and user experience, simplified access management to DevOps services and simpler, less error-prone security practices and monitoring.

    I want to express my appreciation for the time spent with the Banyan Security team, who has pioneered many of the concepts outlined in this blog and contributed valuable insight.

  • Sonatype Report Shows Spike in Supply Chain Attacks

    Sonatype Report Shows Spike in Supply Chain Attacks

    Sonatype today released a report that finds there has been a 650% year-over-year increase in supply chain attacks aimed at upstream public repositories. Cybercriminals hope to compromise these repositories by injecting malware into software components that many organizations might be using, according to the report.

    The seventh annual State of the Software Supply Chain Report is based on an analysis of 100,000 applications and 4 million component migrations made in the last month alongside a survey of 702 software engineering professionals. Specifically, the report focuses on demand and security trends associated with the Java (Maven Central), JavaScript (npmjs), Python (PyPI) and .Net (nuget) ecosystems. The top four open source ecosystems now contain a combined 37,451,682 different versions of components, a nearly 20% increase year-over-year.

    Over the course of 2021, developers also downloaded more than 2.2 trillion open source packages from the top four ecosystems, a 73% increase over the prior year.

    However, despite the huge available supply of open source software, use of this software is primarily concentrated in a small number of popular projects. Production applications are only using 6% of available open source projects.

    Not surprisingly, popular projects are more vulnerable to compromise. A total of 29% of popular project versions contain at least one known security vulnerability. Conversely, only 6.5% of projects that are not widely used have vulnerabilities.

    Stephen Magill, vice president of product innovation for Sonatype, said popular open source projects tend to have better security practices in place because of the larger number of maintainers and contributors working on the project. The paradox is that less-popular open source software is not likely to be targeted by cybercriminals who tend to focus on targets that represent the best chance to infect downstream applications, said Magill. Popular open source projects were 2.8 times more likely to contain vulnerabilities, the report found.

    Projects with a faster mean-time-to-update (MTTU) are also generally more secure. They are 1.8 times less likely to have vulnerabilities, the survey found.

    The report also found developers make suboptimal choices 69% of the time when updating third-party dependencies, even when newer versions of projects are generally available. Developers may be avoiding those updates because they may be perceived to be not as stable as they would like. However, those updates generally contain the latest security patches needed to address a recently discovered vulnerability. Commercial engineering teams only manage 25% of the components they use, leaving the majority of their open source dependencies stale and susceptible to increased security risks, the report found.

    Finally, the report suggested there is a greater need for automation. Equipped with intelligent automation, a medium-sized enterprise with 20 application development teams would save a total of 160 developer days a year. Sonatype estimated that could save organizations $192,000 a year.

    In general, Magill noted that the security of software supply chains should continue to improve in the wake of an executive order issued by President Biden. In the meantime, however, most organizations would be well-advised to start reviewing the components and dependencies that make up their software supply chain sooner rather than later. After all, chances are good that cybercriminals are already doing much the same thing.

  • Avoid Security Apathy with DevSecOps

    Avoid Security Apathy with DevSecOps

    Against the backdrop of rapid digital transformation accelerated by the pandemic, every industry has seen an increase in high-level cybersecurity breaches. As organizations continue to support distributed and remote work, organizations must address the risk of incomplete security policies and procedures resulting in exposure to IT risk of all kinds. SolarWinds recently revealed findings of its SolarWinds IT Trends Report 2021: Building a Secure Future, which analyzes the degree to which organizations are prepared to manage, mitigate and prevent risk in the future.

    Measuring Risk

    The survey found 46% of tech pro respondents admitted to having medium exposure to enterprise IT risk over the past 12 months. The level of perceived risk differs by size of the organization, where a sense of high or extremely high-risk exposure is perceived at enterprise organizations (19%) compared to their small business (11%) and mid-sized business (7%) counterparts. With the rise of high-level cybersecurity breaches this past year, this is a concerning reality for security within enterprises.

    However, the findings highlight a possible disconnect—although enterprise IT risk exists within their organizations, tech pro respondents are confident in their risk management and mitigation preparedness strategies. In fact, 73% of tech pro respondents “agree” or “strongly agree” their IT organization is prepared to manage, mitigate and resolve risk factor-related issues due to the policies and/or procedures they already have in place.

    How to Avoid Security Apathy

    As a tech pro, it’s easy to think of security as an afterthought or to expect ownership to fall solely on the shoulders of a dedicated security team. This is especially true for tech pros who have been with a company for a long time and are resistant to change.

    As we emerge from the pandemic, those continued perceptions reflect apathy and complacency when it comes to security and will only increase their business’ level of risk. They’ll be more apt to limit exposure to new technologies, ignore better ways of working, or worse continue to be oblivious to other areas of less obvious risk within an organization. Something needs to change.

    Tech pros must shift their mindset and accept security as one of their responsibilities. To start this process, IT teams must examine current processes from the outside in and apply rigor when evaluating solutions. Since it’s common to be bombarded with marketing messages, this means spending time verifying a tool or solution’s functions and capabilities to help separate fact from fiction.

    Next, tech pros must focus on providing complete visibility into all systems to identify areas of risk and opportunity. Even small adjustments, like speedier upgrades and patches, the adoption of password managers and multi-factor authentication (MFA) solutions can help improve an organization’s overall security posture.

    Most important of all, tech pros should be continuously assessing their risk management, mitigation, and protocols to avoid complacency and becoming “blind” to risk.

    After a year of “crisis mode” induced by the pandemic, it’s easy to be complacent and sidestep the responsibility of risk assessment and aversion. As the security landscape continues to evolve, tech pros must remain vigilant and deploy solutions that provide better visibility into systems to identify risk and opportunity. This year’s study reveals the opportunity ahead for tech pros and IT leadership to align on priorities and policies that can best position not only individual organizations but the industry at large to succeed in managing, mitigating and preventing risk in the future.

  • That Other Continuous: Data Protection

    That Other Continuous: Data Protection

    Looking around at things to add to our current project’s toolchain (that is one of the reasons we do these side projects; to check out all sorts of new ideas/tools/etc), and researching the company where a former coworker is the CMO, I was drawn into the resurgent world of continuous data protection (CDP). It is interesting that we could end up adding CDP to the list of ‘continuous’ activities, like CI/CD/… CDP, even though CDP was named long before any of our DevOps or Agile terms were born.

    The whole idea of CDP is that it is always backed up, so you are continuously protected. It largely failed when first introduced because it massively increased both the cost and complexity of your storage environment. Essentially, it required a hot copy of all of your storage. Not something most enterprises were willing to invest in. I mean, it was friggin’ expensive. And it used virtualized storage, which no one wanted to mess with. Long story short, at the time, virtualized storage introduced issues no one wanted to deal with.

    But several things have changed over the years, and it is interesting to see where CDP concepts have cropped up. You see, today it is being used to protect companies from ransomware. It’s still a bit of complexity, but we’ve become experts at hiding complexity. It still requires a lot of storage (I would argue that the current versions I’m seeing require more storage than the original CDP solutions did), but when your environment is taken over by ransomware, a clean machine can be used to restore data to a point before the ransomware took over. From a “continuous protection” standpoint—giving it a modern meaning along the lines of “continuous testing”—that is an astounding feat.

    The way it works—at least the way that the current implementations I’ve looked at work—is pretty simple at heart, though as my former coworker likes to say, “Easy in concept, difficult in implementation.” It keeps every write ever made to storage, with time and currency markers. So it knows what the disk currently looks like, but it can also get to what the disk looked like at 12:33 am yesterday. Or January first, or a year ago… You get the idea.

    It uses a ton of space because there is an implied truth here—nothing is destroyed. In traditional storage, if you change a document and hit save, the document is written over. In the new iteration of CDP, if you change a document and hit save, the changes are recorded, but the original is not altered. Call it “non-destructive writes,” if you will.

    It is worth checking out. The concepts are huge, and offer protection that is otherwise in short supply. If you have a dedicated DevSecOps team, they’re the ones I’d point at it, since the big reason for using this is a security reason at heart (though there are other uses; I’m currently gushing about security because this is a big deal).

    I’ll get back on track and report back about things directly in the toolchain for our newest DevOps project next week. I thought this was worth writing about, since most of you all could use the concept, even if only for peace of mind. You’re rocking it! Protecting your work against the newest range of attackers is just common sense. It’s worth seeing if the modern iteration of CDP is for you.

  • Building DevSecOps With Value Stream Management

    Building DevSecOps With Value Stream Management

    As teams develop software, testing for potential security risks and flaws is mission-critical, just as it has always been. Yet, cyberattackers continue to exploit code vulnerabilities as open source code remains the foundation for the majority of commercial applications across all industries. Security firms are churning out solutions at an aggressive rate, and both project managers and their teams hope they can purchase some bolt-on tool or license a service to take care of security, painlessly. In the end, vulnerabilities still occur.

    The most effective pathway to secure software code has always been to eliminate vulnerabilities. The question today is, “What is the best way to achieve that goal given such an accelerated, threat-laden landscape?” Before we dig into that answer, let’s take a closer look at the problem.

    Software Security Is Everyone’s Issue

    Even the largest organizations, from Adobe to Microsoft, have been humbled by the number and scope of code vulnerabilities that have been overlooked—and therefore escaped into public release—due to the frenzied pace of software updates. Here’s just one example:

    On May 11, 2021, Adobe issued a security update for Adobe InDesign that addressed multiple critical vulnerabilities. “Successful exploitation could lead to arbitrary code execution in the context of the current user,” the security bulletin read. “Arbitrary code execution in the context of the current user” is cybersecurity speak for “an attacker can execute arbitrary commands or code on a target machine or process.” Arbitrary code execution vulnerabilities are known to be one of the top attack vectors that lead to system penetration resulting in data breaches.

    Given the enormous effort companies and their software teams are exerting today, and the importance of avoiding software flaws in the current threat landscape, how is this happening? It doesn’t help to have publicly available lists of software vulnerabilities posted on the dark web and CVE (ironically, a database of vulnerabilities launched to help companies improve their cybersecurity). Hackers — from solopreneurs to nation-state teams — are having a field day with this information.

    Rearranging the Puzzle Pieces Doesn’t Guarantee Security

    In an attempt to resolve this challenge, industry professionals are coining new terms and calling for new approaches. One I have seen promoted recently is “SecDevOps” rather than “DevSecOps.” With SecDevOps, they assert, security is first—conducted at the start of the project and maintained all the way through.

    This approach isn’t new—it’s essentially a variant of shifting left, which for more than a decade has been an established mechanism in software testing for finding flaws and “failing faster.” In my experience, while failing earlier and faster with any software endeavor has considerable value, it is not automatically going to highlight all security challenges and enable their resolution.

    It is just as important for DevSecOps teams to collaborate and work together, not only to support development and operations, but also to ensure security, compliance and governance are built into every piece of code.

    Insight Is Preferable to Blind Interpretation

    Unfortunately, achieving that collaboration productively comes with challenges. DevSecOps teams need rich, real-time visibility into code vulnerabilities, early, so they can act on that information and update code as it moves through the pipeline. To do that, they need actionable insight—not a motley assortment of data that’s open to interpretation.

    In value stream management, we have seen firsthand while working with our clients that several techniques can be applied to eliminate vulnerabilities more quickly and effectively. All of these approaches hold value, whether a firm is seeking to deliver a new product to market or secure its current software pipeline.

    • Amplify feedback loops. Continuous feedback loops—from DevSecOps tools, for example—give developers more detailed insight into their code’s vulnerability.
    • Run security scans. Give testers the ability to run security scans on their code even before it is committed to identify security vulnerabilities as early as possible.
    • Leverage reporting and analytics. Gaining early access to as much insight as possible makes teams and management more confident regarding swift action to resolve code deficiencies.

    These approaches also support governance and compliance initiatives. As a bonus, they boost software quality, as well.

    The Business Case for Built-In Security, Governance and Compliance

    As mentioned earlier, these activities are integrally connected with the effort to eliminate code vulnerabilities. In case you are thinking, “This is obvious,” take a moment to reflect on this statistic: 60% of data breaches involved vulnerabilities for which a patch was available but not applied.

    The sheer scope of the problem also underscores the lack of attention to security and governance—and any compliance requirements that accompany it.

    Half of websites in production have high-risk vulnerabilities, and 82% of these are located in application code.

    The high percentage of errors in source code suggests it was not checked for vulnerabilities during development, signaling that developers focused on app functionality and gave short thrift to security. This often means they don’t have a program for governance and compliance, either.

    In my experience, a primary reason for these failures is that teams don’t have actionable information from the activities mentioned above, such as real-time feedback from DevSecOps tools. Developers need this insight when they are resolving sprint backlogs. Information relating to high-level security issues must be available so it can be addressed, with issues prioritized and resolved, and not left sitting in siloed DevSecOps tools.

    In many ways, DevSecOps is in the same stage of transformation as DevOps was a decade ago. Teams are frustrated by needs they do not know how to meet, and they hope for fast resolution in the form of tools and solutions. As with virtually every other software challenge over time, there is no replacement for getting in the trenches and fixing the problem rather than placing strategic band-aids.

    If you are not subject to compliance mandates and therefore dismiss the value of software governance, consider this: If your team misses a software vulnerability that results in a major data breach because you didn’t have the insight to identify it—or the governance to ensure it was addressed—your firm may not recover. The imperative for software security—and the governance that helps ensure it stays that way—should be sufficient for organizations to take vulnerabilities seriously.

    Effectively applying the insight gleaned from software code reporting and analytics is the surest way to eliminate vulnerabilities. As an added benefit, the reporting and analytics that informs the software effort can also make the case to upper management for the value of launching future improvement initiatives.

  • How DevOps Can Address CX Challenges

    How DevOps Can Address CX Challenges

    Delivering a seamless customer experience (CX) has become a top priority for companies undergoing digital transformation initiatives, as 85% of buyers are willing to pay more for a great customer experience. However, customers aren’t only willing to pay more for a positive experience–they’ll go elsewhere if their experience isn’t positive. In fact, 33% of customers will leave a brand they previously loved after just one bad experience, and 92% of customers will completely abandon a company after just two or three negative experiences. So, delivering a positive CX has become a major priority for companies that want to retain their current customers while winning over new prospects from competitors.

    To assure CX quality for customer-serving technology products and services, established DevOps processes and strategies should be applied to the unique aspects of customer experience software. DevOps for CX enables the delivery of software where the customer’s experience is paramount and quality is imperative. However, there are six major pitfalls in deploying DevOps for CX that customer-serving organizations must overcome.

    What is DevOps for CX?

    To understand the challenges, we must first understand the purpose of DevOps for CX.

    DevOps for CX refocuses the DevOps software methodology on the unique aspects of CX software to enable greater efficiency and quality. The constant delivery of expanded CX capabilities through new software developments and features has become a priority in organizations undergoing digital transformation. But when it comes to software products for CX and customer services, quality cannot be sacrificed for speedy development. At the same time, companies must still meet the demand for rapid innovations and tight deadlines on software delivery.

    Customers have higher expectations than ever before. These days, there aren’t any second chances when it comes to a customer’s experience. Social media has empowered customers to broadcast CX failures for the whole world to see. Due to the visibility of CX mishaps and negative customer interactions, a brand’s CX reputation depends on flawless execution from the customer’s first impression.

    The customer is always right; so, the customer’s perspective must be the primary consideration in software development and testing. This puts significant demand on the DevOps solutions and processes specific to user experience (UX) design, as well as CX testing and monitoring. Software must be designed, developed and continuously tested and monitored in real-time. Companies need to know all the different ways a customer might use the software to accomplish their goals and quickly identify and fix any potential issues before the customer experiences them.

    6 Potential Pitfalls of DevOps for CX

    Underinvestment in Executive Sponsorship and Cultural Evolution

    For CX transformation initiatives to succeed, they must be empowered by an executive leader who can champion the need to drive cultural change and strategic investments. An executive leader is necessary because CX initiatives typically span multiple departments: Operations, development, marketing, sales and services, for example.

    Whether the leader taking on this responsibility is an existing executive or a brand new position will depend on the company’s organizational structure. Some companies assign this duty to the COO, CIO or CMO, while others create an entirely new chief CX officer role so that the leader can give their full attention to the CX transformation initiatives at hand. Regardless of the DevOps for CX champion’s title, they must have a broad authority over budget, people and processes to make their role effective.

    Competing and Misaligned Incentives

    DevOps is a multi-team effort. Ensuring that the teams’ objectives and incentives are aligned is key to ensuring that DevOps for CX projects are executed harmoniously. Each team should have objectives that fit their team function but do not oppose other teams’ objectives, such as speed or a low defect rate on the development side and high reliability for the operations side. These functional team objectives should be centered around respective business objectives for customer satisfaction.

    Unclear Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

    Adopting DevOps forces organizations to take on a more collaborative mindset. Due to the multi-team, collaborative nature of DevOps for CX initiatives, it’s critical that KPIs are clearly communicated, widely understood, and monitored across teams. KPIs should also be widely distributed so CX can be viewed at an operational level.

    Lack of DevSecOps Prioritization

    Many organizations fail to recognize the importance of DevSecOps from different aspects of DevOps. Not only must customer data be protected, but larger organizations that operate globally must also ensure they are complying with regional data privacy regulations. Organizations that don’t comply with regulatory requirements risk fines and other punitive setbacks.

    You must be able to test security features in production to protect both customers and your organization itself. Unfortunately, security is too often one of the last DevOps aspects to be discussed.

    Different Configurations Across CX Delivery Environments

    Shifting between development, quality assurance, staging and production is a major source of frustration for DevOps teams, as the environments are often configured differently. As code moves through the software life cycle and different environments, having a consistent approach to the solutions and environments via deployment automation will prevent wasted time fixing bugs that suddenly pop up when the code is moved.

    Errors Introduced by Manual or Outdated Processes

    Manual processes introduce opportunities for human error, causing delays and defects that result in unplanned work. Performing software testing manually is a sluggish process that not only causes quality issues and delivery delays but also reduces the amount of time developers have to execute any unplanned work or rework that must be done post-testing. Automating the CX systems’ testing results in higher quality and reliability at faster speeds, providing more time post-testing for developers to ensure the product meets quality requirements.

    DevOps for CX enables companies to innovate CX rapidly by delivering high-quality software and maintaining exceptional customer interactions. As CX leaders innovate new products and services through software, DevOps for CX practices will continue to be honed over the coming years. In the meantime, following the best practices outlined here to avoid the six major pitfalls of DevOps for CX will ensure customer experiences are maintained at an elevated level.

  • Infrastructure-as-Code Security will Improve Your Cloud Security

    Infrastructure-as-Code Security will Improve Your Cloud Security

    Moving to the cloud creates a tremendous opportunity to get security right and reduce the risk of a data breach. Most organizations start their cloud security efforts by ‘shifting security left’ thereby addressing issues in the CI/CD pipeline. Fixing known vulnerabilities and risky configurations before pushing images to production makes sense. But there is an opportunity to shift security even further left—as you set up your cloud infrastructure—to reduce risk. Infrastructure-as-code (IaC) security allows you to define security controls as you configure your cloud infrastructure.

    Getting Started on Your Cloud Journey

    Before we dive into IaC security, let’s talk about why platform teams want to deploy infrastructure-as-code as they move through their cloud journey. Most organizations have not yet tackled IaC. They start their journey by experimenting with cloud configurations until they have defined a stack that works for their teams. In this early stage, application teams may be defining their own cloud stacks. They are manually configuring infrastructure or using scripts. Configurations may not be standardized across teams.

    Standardization of Infrastructure Saves Time

    Although experimentation is reasonable early on in the journey, standardization of infrastructure saves time. Cloud services are no different than applications that run on premises. When your teams are using different versions of tools in their stack, getting an application up and running can be a nightmare. Interoperability between services is challenging, and it can feel like you are fixing a different flavor of the same problem over and over.

    Mature cloud platform teams typically prefer to create a ‘golden image’ with a baseline set of services for development teams. They may create a menu of a few standard options to meet different teams’ needs. Because they are standardized, the platform team can take time to validate that they interoperate and are secure. For example, these golden images will be regularly scanned for vulnerabilities and updated to ensure they meet internal security standards and any relevant regulatory requirements.

    IaC security cloud

    Automating Infrastructure Deployment Reduces Errors

    Manually configuring the environment in the cloud for each team is tedious. Once these configurations have been standardized, the cloud infrastructure can be provisioned as code using templates. A declarative approach defines the desired end state, whereas an imperative approach defines the detailed steps to achieve the end state. The templates are normally stored in a Git repository and version controlled. Automating the configuration of infrastructure not only saves time but also reduces errors that can disrupt operations.

    IaC Security Shifts Security Further Left

    Once you have templates that define your infrastructure, standardizing permissions and access rights for services-as-code is a logical next step. The security team typically defines the guardrails or policies for accessing cloud services. These policies can then be defined as code along with the infrastructure configurations. This IaC security is a further ‘shift left’, allowing security to be embedded into infrastructure, even before an application can be deployed. Implementing policy-as-code minimizes the opportunity for human error in configuring security services. By defining these policies and enforcement guidelines together, the DevOps and security teams can establish a trusted partnership.

    Although some organizations may start their journey by implementing IaC security, for most organizations it happens later in the cloud journey. The order is less important than ensuring you take a DevSecOps approach and embed security at each stage to manage risk. Be sure to address the following areas as part of your cloud and container security program:

    Continuously Check Cloud Permissions and Configurations

    Even if you have IaC templates, you need a program to regularly take inventory of all cloud assets and confirm permissions and configurations. The Center for Internet Security (CIS) benchmarks are commonly used to check passwords and access rights. Beyond enforcing these best practices for security on cloud services, continuously checking for changes to permissions and suspicious activity is critical. The cloud vendors capture logs across all of their services, and your security tool should continually monitor and alert using those logs.

    Scan Images for Vulnerabilities and Risky Configurations

    Scanning for vulnerabilities and ensuring configurations use best practices allows you to shift security left into the development pipeline. Scan everywhere you have images—including within registries, pipelines and also check for new vulnerabilities identified for images running in production. Be sure to scan hosts as well as containers. Defining scanning policies and enforcing through the development process creates guardrails for the development team and clarifies expectations. Most regulatory compliance standards have image scanning requirements as well.

    Detect Threats and Respond to Alerts

    Prevention is fundamental but must be supplemented with threat detection and response. Alerting on unexpected behavior can identify the presence of a threat. Initially, teams may use out-of-the-box detection rules as a way to get started and then customize rules over time. Checking configs against dockerfile best practices is a good way to get started. Overly permissive access rights for containers is common in Kubernetes environments and should be allowed only when required.

    As your team develops more expertise with containers and Kubernetes, you can also implement zero-trust network security policies to block unexpected communication between pods, services and applications.

    Some DevOps teams handle triage of alerts, as they can quickly determine if the issue is a configuration issue or an indicator of compromise. Teams often map detection rules to the MITRE ATT&CK framework, allowing their security teams to manage alerts consistently across their environment. For any team to effectively respond to a security alert, it is important to capture a detailed record of exactly what happened before, during and after that event. This visibility can be particularly challenging with containers but it is critical because containers have short lives. The 2021 Sysdig Container Security and Usage Report revealed that about half of containers live less than five minutes.

    Complying with Regulatory Standards

    Complying with regulatory standards can be painful. Some standards were written with cloud computing in mind, like NIST 800-53 and SOC2, and others were not. With those broader standards, it is important to understand the controls that are relevant to containers and the cloud.

    As you consider your compliance program, be proactive—don’t wait until you are ready to roll into production. Start early by engaging your compliance team and helping them get up to speed. Your role is to provide evidence of compliance to pass an audit at any time using the documentation from your security platform.

    Getting Cloud and Container Security Right

    The move to the cloud creates a tremendous opportunity to get security right and reduce risk. The fact that physical security and a chunk of operations are delegated to cloud vendors frees up security and development teams to focus on their more narrow scope within the shared security model. By taking a secure DevOps approach and inserting security into every stage of the application life cycle, your team can confidently and securely run cloud and containers.

  • How to Prepare Your DevOps Environment for DevSecOps

    How to Prepare Your DevOps Environment for DevSecOps

    The COVID-19 pandemic has created a deep, irreversible change within work environments, as most organizations are reimagining this “new normal” with a combination of fully remote or hybrid work. DevOps practices are being increasingly normalized and relied upon to respond to the needs of modern, digitized companies. Coming out of the pandemic, organizations now better understand the need to efficiently deploy the software applications necessary to thrive in this new world of work.

    This isn’t surprising given organizations have realized the value of DevOps to help product teams deliver quality code at a fast pace. DevOps enables them to be more agile and move more quickly to respond to evolving market changes and business demands. To maintain the speed of software delivery, product teams are integrating various tools within their CI/CD pipelines and minimizing tool citations and validations outside of their pipelines.

    As the rate of change increases alongside these DevOps practices, automating compliance to enterprise security controls becomes more important than ever, especially given that security vulnerabilities in code and configurations present dire business risks. For DevOps to truly succeed, organizations need to modernize and automate security processes, making them an integral part of the DevOps build and delivery pipeline—readying the overall DevOps environment for DevSecOps.

    But successful DevSecOps deployments depend heavily on the maturity of an organization’s current DevOps environment and security operations workflows. This includes prioritizing the core principles of automation, measurement and collaboration because these same principles also drive positive security outcomes. Referencing these principles, here are four best practices organizations should consider incorporating when evaluating how to mature their DevOps ecosystem and security operations processes to be ready for DevSecOps.

    Embed Security Tools in Developer Workflows and Governance Processes

    The first step in the journey prioritizes a “security-first” mindset and related skills for development teams. Security shouldn’t be an afterthought, and development teams shouldn’t rely on security teams to check vulnerabilities later in the life cycle. Instead, security experts need to become an integral part of the development phase so that the code accounts for security from the get-go.

    This can be achieved either by moving responsibility for security skills into the development teams or by having the security team play an advisory role earlier in the life cycle. Development teams can then automate the necessary security vulnerability checks—like static application security testing (SAST), software composition analysis (SCA) and dynamic application security testing (DAST). But more importantly, sharing insights and streamlining communication between development and security teams is crucial to ensure policies are working and are being consistently applied across the organization.

    Continue Automation Beyond the Pipeline

    Puppet’s 2020 State of DevOps Report revealed that organizations have matured their DevOps environment by improving governance processes such as change management, preparing enterprise infrastructure and applications for organizational change. In fact, they found that organizations with automated change management and governance processes are nearly three times more likely to outperform competitors in DevOps transformations.

    This is because automation improves change management processes, which in turn eliminates barriers to applying governance to DevOps. This is also backed by Puppet’s survey, which cited that automation makes organizations more confident that their change management solutions are effective. A comprehensive, automated change management process instills governance by applying policy-based rules to a code or configuration change before allowing it into production. It does this in real-time by leveraging data collected from the pipeline. When applied correctly, DevSecOps tools prevent vulnerabilities and automated change management conducts a ‘last mile’ check to ensure the correct scans were run and adhere to compliance policies.

    Provide End-to-End Traceability Across DevOps

    Product teams—and all involved in the delivery of an application—should have an accessible audit trail, providing visibility into security checks, users, code and configuration changes, code quality, testing and more. This paints a clear picture of what happens to the software from ideation to production. In an ideal world, product teams include both operations and security personnel, but these functions often remain siloed in large organizations.

    Companies can break down these silos and make it easier for teams to collaborate by centralizing visibility. Providing visibility and centralizing security policies makes it easy for teams to efficiently operate the delivery process of software since they are provided a single source of truth. Additionally, an automated system for gathering audit data improves the consistency and reliability of audit information. Automatically collecting data from the entire pipeline and eliminating the need for developers to enter information diminishes the likelihood of data anomalies—saving valuable time and resources.

    Empower Cross-Enterprise Collaboration to Address Security Issues in the DevOps Pipeline

    Applying artificial intelligence and machine learning to DevSecOps processes helps organizations quickly identify and remediate security issues before they are manifested in production, enhancing proactive and actionable collaboration and coordination across product teams.

    As Puppet cited in its 2019 State of DevOps Report, sharing and collaboration are two of the most impactful things teams can prioritize to improve DevOps initiatives, including DevSecOps, and this still holds true today. The 2020 survey results signaled how many more organizations are reaching this peak point of DevOps maturity.

    Ultimately, we’re already seeing how operational activities—like checking software for security vulnerabilities—are moving into the DevOps pipeline and are being handled as “code.” But organizations should take this a step further by keeping in mind factors such as reliability, predictability, measurability and observability across DevOps deployments to foster more secure environments and pipelines.

  • How Third-Party Security Assurance Enhances DevSecOps

    How Third-Party Security Assurance Enhances DevSecOps

    Enterprises are constantly trying to do more with less today, and do it faster to gain competitive advantages and grow revenue. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in their internal software development processes. The movement to third-party or external sources of code is a natural reaction to “faster” release cycles. However, this need for speed can have unintended downstream security consequences for application development teams.

    As cybercrime has grown parallel to the explosion of digital processes in many enterprises, “security by design” needs to go from a nice-to-have concept to a hard reality. This is the reason DevSecOps has gone from buzzword to practice for many development teams. Implementing a software security assurance program, which embeds security as part of the coding and assembly process rather than a separate, after-the-fact quality testing function performed by security staff, is vital to limiting the cost of fixing vulnerabilities and preventing data breaches.

    Software Attacks are a Growing Problem

    One of the recent and most high-profile cybercrime incidents involved hackers using the SolarWinds software platform as a launching pad to breach companies. With threats specifically targeting software on a growth curve, organizations need to secure both the software they develop and that which they acquire from suppliers. This often includes a lot of reused code picked up from vendors and open source libraries that offer the building blocks for software and applications to help developers work faster and cheaper—but with a potential security cost.

    Maintaining software security has become more complicated as enterprises rely more on third parties for the components to develop software faster and cheaper and keep up with digital disruption. The share of code developed in-house for enterprise software has dropped from 43% to 38% in the last five years, while the use of commercial and open source software has grown in its place. Rather than rely on custom code, many developers are leveraging open source components or API libraries to build applications. Some software vendors provide application libraries that can have third-party components purchased by that vendor for their customers.

    Leaning on third-party code can leave software open to abuse, as developers have less visibility into the content of the components they use as the building blocks of their programming. Some vendor libraries get reused by the vendor for different applications, and some use open source components in their code; a developer may be using third- and fourth-party code from who-knows-what source. Vulnerabilities can be hiding many layers deep in the code, and unless developers know the source, they are difficult to detect.

    This is where a well-established software security assurance program can reduce the risk of cybersecurity incidents and the impact of security weaknesses. It protects users and the enterprise by establishing cybersecurity practices, fulfills the organization’s risk management and compliance requirements and offers the C-suite visibility into the process.

    A Checklist for Software Security Assurance

    A well-organized security assurance program ensures that security requirements have been established for the software and the software development process and that any software deployed is free from vulnerabilities. If any are found, it also establishes remediation steps to handle them.

    Some important practices:

    ● Trust but verify: Ensure that a security evaluation has been performed for the software throughout the software development life cycle (SDLC). Proactively validate the security and integrity of software code and provide results identifying any vulnerabilities found and assign remediation steps to correct them before release into production.
    ● Know what’s in the software: Since many developers and software vendors rely on open source and third-party code more frequently, it’s more important than ever to know what those components are and where they come from. Software security
    assurance should include the software bill of materials (SBOM) for any open source code and third-party components.
    ● Put it in writing: Produce documented proof, such as the SBOM mentioned above, and generate a vulnerability report proving the integrity of the software. If vulnerabilities are found, determine the cybersecurity risk and the potential impact based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) score, an industry standard, to guide remediation.

    A good software security assurance program makes sure that each software review or audit includes an evaluation of the security requirements for the enterprise. These can vary by industry—and even within the organization—based on which function the software is running. A program running mailing lists for a power generation company is not as mission-critical as the software running the power grid.

    With all industries in the crosshairs of cyberattackers, an effective and diligent software security assurance program will make it harder for them to find a back door and can help keep your organization safe.

  • Foundation Proposes Advancing eBPF Adoption Across Multiple OSes

    Foundation Proposes Advancing eBPF Adoption Across Multiple OSes

    The eBPF Foundation, which proposes to advance adoption of an approach that enables sandbox programs to run faster at the kernel level, is being launched today as an arm of the Linux Foundation.

    The technology known as eBPF was originally developed for Linux. The eBPF Foundation is now committed to expanding use of eBPF across all operating systems. Members of the eBPF Foundation include Facebook, Google, Isovalent, Microsoft and Netflix.

    Thomas Graf, CTO and co-founder of Isovalent, a provider of networking and security tools that leverage eBPF, said IT organizations should expect to see the technology become part of Windows, along with other operating systems, as the core technology is tested and validated across a much wider range of platforms.

    In effect, eBPF changes the way operating systems are designed. It bridges the boundary between kernel and user space by enabling developers to combine and apply logic across multiple subsystems that, historically, were completely independent of one another. That approach enables, for example, a security tool to scale to the point where it can identify threats at much higher levels of throughput to improve overall scale at a time when the volume of cybersecurity attacks being simultaneously launched continues to increase.

    Currently, eBPF is widely employed by web-scale companies such as cloud service providers. Facebook is using it as the primary software-defined load balancer in its data centers while Google is using open source Cilium networking software within its managed Kubernetes offerings.

    However, adoption within on-premises IT environments that have deployed Linux has been more limited simply because the number of vendors that have optimized networking, security and storage offerings to take advantage of eBPF is still fairly limited.

    Sysdig, for example, recently launched made available an instance of the open source Falco container security platform available that employs eBPF. Tigera has also made available an instance of its container networking platform that leverages eBPF at the kernel level of Linux.

    Ultimately, Graf notes the biggest benefit of eBPF is efficiency. The total cost of processing for security, networking and storage platforms should decline as more vendors take advantage of a capability that will one day be widely employed across multiple operating systems.

    In the meantime, IT organizations would be well-advised to ask their vendors when they plan to support eBPF. Cloud service providers generally require it to deliver their own managed services more efficiently, so any vendor that hopes to sell a platform to those providers will need to support eBPF to drive performance at scale. The issue then becomes determining which platforms that have embraced the technology are also available in on-premises IT environments looking for similar benefits.

    Regardless of approach, it’s clear there will soon be a reason to upgrade not just networking, storage and security platforms but also instances of operating systems that don’t yet support eBPF. DevOps teams would be well-advised to plan accordingly because the number of platforms that will ultimately benefit from eBPF spans the entire enterprise.