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Why Is Cloud DevSecOps Important?

by Jason Chavarría on October 12, 2022

Are you deploying your application in the cloud?
Then the more reason to implement DevSecOps!
Even though the cloud is indeed the way forward,
it poses further security concerns.
Misconfiguration of cloud services being among the main causes of disaster.
The DevSecOps culture helps organizations
by making cloud security a continuous process.
In DevSecOps,
security is seamlessly integrated
into the software development lifecycle (SDLC)
from the earliest stages.
Since cloud security is shifted to the left,
any issues can be spotted earlier
and remediated to prevent successful cyberattacks.

Cloud security done right with DevSecOps

Teams choose cloud infrastructure
because it allows them to build software solutions
on customized modern architectures.
And as it is highly scalable,
they can increase their application’s use of cloud servers
to satisfy their customers’ need for speed and effectiveness.
Besides,
cloud services are backed up by giants such as Amazon,
Google and Microsoft.
Remarkably,
software development teams get these benefits for costs
that are lower than they otherwise would be.

The cloud is,
then,
at the center of the digital transformation
that is going on everywhere.
So it’s crucial to have the security of this environment
at the top of our minds.
The traditional DevOps approach to development
is to create an application on a given infrastructure
and test the security when the software solution is about to be released.
So,
the application development and IT operations teams work
in isolation from the security team.
When the latter is siloed as in DevOps,
the verification of security becomes a hindrance,
as it forces developers to go back
and rework to fix problems
that could have been dealt with earlier.

DevSecOps aims to join together from the very start
the efforts of the development,
operations
and security teams,
making security an integral part of the entire SDLC.
In regard to the cloud,
this culture proposes to shift left
the detection of vulnerabilities in proprietary code,
infrastructure as code (IaC) files
and container images,
as well as of misconfiguration of assets,
both proprietary and of a cloud provider,
and problems with third-party dependencies,
such as outdated or noncompliant software.
In DevSecOps,
security assessments are continuous and,
although there could be a great deal of automation applied to them,
they are also performed manually.
As we will elaborate further below,
the benefits of bringing cloud security to the early SDLC stages involve,
in few words,
launching more secure,
innovative
and competitive software faster.

Key issues cloud DevSecOps helps tackle

Though the threats are many,
just to illustrate the use of cloud DevSecOps,
we could mention a few common issues
that could be detected and addressed
earlier than in the traditional development and operations testing phase.
Two such cases are errors in coding and service configuration,
which pose a serious risk to information security.
Our pen testers repeatedly find credentials for cloud services
in the source codes of clients.
(This was evidenced clearly in our
2022 State of Attacks.)
And to make things worse,
these credentials are often for roles with excessive permissions.
Attackers who get their hands on them can
extract some more secrets,
modify web pages and files,
shut down servers,
and more.

Another issue is the security of infrastructure as code files.
The cloud brings teams the benefit
of being able to write infrastructure
(e.g., databases, networks, virtual machines) definitions,
which guarantees reliably creating the same environments over and over.
Such definitions can be stored in a repository
and deployed using continuous integration.
Now,
when teams create new environments
(even if only for experimentation),
they need them to be secure.
For example,
problems arise
when these definitions fail to apply the principle of least privilege,
thus granting certain accounts privileges
that are higher than necessary.
Or when encryption algorithms don’t properly protect files,
thus potentially compromising sensitive data.
The security of information is compromised
in a similar way to the one we mentioned above.
Fortunately,
static application security testing (SAST)
can identify these flaws pretty early;
no need to wait until the software
testing phase or being hit by a cyberattack.

Along with securing infrastructure before deployment into the cloud,
there’s the need to assess containers,
whose popularity is rising due to the adoption of the cloud.
These are “packages
of application code and dependencies
that, by virtualizing operating systems,
allow applications to run quickly and reliably in any environment.”
Early and constant SAST
and software composition analysis (SCA)
help find vulnerable code
and dependencies in such packages
that can open the door to exploitation.
Further,
continuous manual dynamic application security testing (DAST)
is advised
to find network and storage misconfigurations
that could allow unauthorized access
and sensitive data disclosure,
respectively.

Benefits of DevSecOps in the cloud

These are the main benefits of implementing cloud DevSecOps:

Closer collaboration:
Development, security and operations teams unite for the shared cause
that is delivering secure software fast in the cloud.
Some individuals,
like DevSecOps engineers,
can lead the way to secure the infrastructure
while training fellow developers on the basics.
Faster deployment:
DevOps had already boosted speed for putting changes into production.
Since DevSecOps minimizes the problems with security
that are encountered just before software release in the cloud,
it’s considered the natural evolution of DevOps
that augments deployment frequency.
Faster response to change:
As teams release more frequently in the cloud,
they can respond to innovation and improvement needs faster.
This is true especially for taking full advantage
of cloud-native infrastructure
to keep pace with the competition.
Faster vulnerability remediation:
As our 2022 State of Attacks
shows,
the mean time to remediate security issues is reduced by 30%
if organizations break the build (i.e.,
prevent software with open vulnerabilities from being released)
and are thus urged to address them.
Lower remediation costs:
Since vulnerabilities are remediated early,
costs (e.g., time-related, monetary)
are lower than when this is done in the production stage.

DevSecOps cloud security with Fluid Attacks

At Fluid Attacks,
we assess cloud security
with comprehensive security testing
throughout the entire SDLC.
(Check out our DevSecOps tools.)
We look at your source code
combining the advantages of automated and manual methods
to find exposed secrets and credentials for cloud services.
Further,
we assess IaC files for misconfigurations
so that you can enhance the security of your cloud resources.
We also look for outdated
or vulnerable software dependencies
or those whose licenses are not compatible with your organization’s policies.
You can track all the findings,
manage remediation
and get guidance from hackers
on our Attack Resistance Management platform (ARM).
All this and more,
using our Continuous Hacking solution.