What is DevSecOps?
DevSecOps is an acronym for ‘Development’, ‘Security’, and ‘Operations’, and it is a product of the latest reforms in software development, particularly an evolution from DevOps. Why? Because security was always an afterthought in DevOps. Having realized the importance of security, the industry is (still) slowly moving towards a development model in which ‘security’ is a central theme.
DevSecOps, incorporates security measures early in the application development lifecycle—from coding all the way through to deployment and monitoring. Prioritizing security from early development stages is the foundational principle of this DevSecOps model.

What is the Goal of DevSecOps?
The goal of DevSecOps is to remove the burden placed exclusively on the security team by making ‘security posture’ a shared responsibility between all teams — development, operations, and security. This approach not only guarantees continuous detection and remediation of vulnerabilities, but also breaks down silos and fosters collaboration, preventing security from being a bottleneck. Some of the key goals of DevSecOps are:
Preventing vulnerabilities by integrating security into software development.
Automating security testing to minimize human error and speed up delivery.
Maintaining compliance with security policies across SDLC.
Ensuring rapid recovery from incidents through continuous monitoring and threat detection mechanisms
What is the role of Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) in DevSecOps?
When implemented correctly, an ASPM program can help both Dev and Sec teams:
Dev Teams
Developers can address security issues early on, during the ‘code’ or ‘build’ stage. This prevents vulnerabilities from impacting production deployments, reducing time spent on manual security checks with realtime actionable insights.
Security Teams
SecOps professionals can have realtime visibility into the security posture with a centralized DevSecOps dashboard. This helps them maintain governance, manage risks, and automate policy enforcement with bare-minimum intervention.
Why are DevSecOps Practices Important?
Widening of the threat landscape means businesses are more prone to suffering from security breaches or attacks that are damaging to brand reputation. Purely from a preventive standpoint, early security considerations play a crucial role in end-to-end DevOps security. Besides, making security an afterthought in software development often leads to costly fixes and delayed software releases, neither of which is desirable.
Reduced Vulnerabilities
Adopting security early in the SDLC helps with early detection of security vulnerabilities and fixing of security gaps.
Faster Releases
Automating security within the delivery process reduces bottlenecks on security teams, leading to faster and safer software delivery.
Regulatory Compliance
Embedding policy checks within software delivery helps maintain compliance with regulatory standards like FedRAMP, NIST, OWASP, etc.
With DevSecOps, software is secure by design rather than relying on patches or remediation effort after detecting vulnerabilities in production.
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How Does DevSecOps Work?
DevSecOps works by integrating security controls into existing DevOps workflows. This includes performing security tests during development, automating policy checks during deployment, and real-time monitoring during ongoing operations (post deployment). The CI/CD pipeline in DevOps plays a crucial role in binding this whole process together.
Application Security Testing
Integrating application security tests like SAST, DAST, SCA, Image/ Binary scanning, Secrets scanning, etc., with the CI/CD pipeline ensures tests are automated, and results are correlated from different tools to identify both vulnerabilities in code and gaps in the software supply chain.
Automating Policy Checks
Manual policy checks are time-consuming and slow down software delivery. DevSecOps can automate software policies and enforce compliance verification within CI/CD pipelines to ensure application code and supply chain infrastructure are secure and adhere to regulations.
Real-Time Monitoring
DevSecOps continuously monitors applications for threats and vulnerabilities post deployment. SecOps (Security Operations) teams receive real-time feedback and insights to promptly address risks and flag any downtime or service degradation.
What are the Components of DevSecOps?
DevSecOps is built on a range of interconnected components that help in building, delivering, and securing software applications.
Automated CI/CD Pipelines
A fully automated CI/CD pipeline ensures that code is continuously tested, deployed, and security checks are embedded within each stage of software delivery. This helps maintain release velocity and enforce security controls.
Security Automation
Automating security checks—like SAST, DAST, and container scans—reduces human error. By spotting vulnerabilities sooner, teams can complete security reviews faster and release software more securely.
Application Security Posture Management (ASPM)
ASPM unifies security efforts across an application’s lifecycle, improving visibility into security risks and automating vulnerability tracking. It also prioritizes high-risk issues, enabling quick responses to critical threats.
Compliance Management
Automated compliance checks ensure applications meet industry standards, such as FedRAMP or OWASP. This approach ensures agile development without the risk of regulatory issues or slowing delivery.
Vulnerability Management
Vulnerability management includes identifying, ranking, and fixing weaknesses throughout development. By automating these steps, teams can address vulnerabilities early, reducing the risk of late-stage issues.
Collaboration and Communication
Cross-functional teams—developers, security professionals, and operations—must collaborate to upkeep a healthy security posture. Strong communication is essential to fostering the belief that security is everyone’s responsibility.
Benefits of DevSecOps
Early Detection of Vulnerabilities
Integrating security early helps detect vulnerabilities quickly, minimizing risks and improving code quality.
Faster Time-to-Market
Automated checks streamline security processes, reducing human error and enabling faster, secure deployments.
Improved Collaboration
DevSecOps fosters collaboration between development, security, and operations, breaking silos and streamlining workflows.
Reduced Security Incidents
Continuous monitoring and testing lower the chances of breaches or unexpected security incidents.
Enhanced Compliance
Automated compliance checks ensure adherence to standards like FedRAMP, NIST, and OWASP without slowing development.
Cost Savings
Addressing vulnerabilities early reduces remediation costs and minimizes resource use.
Scalability
DevSecOps practices scale with development needs, keeping security in line with application growth.
Greater Agility
Consistent security checks allow teams to adapt quickly without compromising safety.
Continuous Feedback Loops
Real-time feedback supports ongoing improvements, faster resolutions, and secure releases.
Reduced Manual Effort
Automating security and compliance frees teams to focus on innovation over repetitive tasks.
Best Practices of DevSecOps
Automate Security Testing
Automating security tests like SAST, DAST, and SCA within CI/CD pipelines allows teams to catch vulnerabilities early and frequently without manual intervention.
Shift Left Security
Integrating security tests and practices early, from the coding stage, ensures vulnerabilities are identified before they reach production and become critical.
Use Application Security Posture Management (ASPM)
Leverage ASPM tools for end-to-end visibility of the security posture and risk status of applications. Prioritize and mitigate vulnerabilities proactively.
Implement Secure Coding Practices
Train developers on secure coding practices to ensure code is written with security in mind, reducing the risk of introducing vulnerabilities.
Enforce Security Policies with Automation
Enforce security policies to ensure that both the application code and supply chain infrastructure are compliant with industry regulations.
Foster a Collaborative Culture
Encourage collaboration and communication between the Dev, Sec, and Ops teams. DevSecOps thrives on shared responsibility for security.
Continuous Monitoring and Feedback
Continuously monitor applications for threats and provide real-time feedback to security teams for rapid response and remediation measures.
Continuous Improvement Through Metrics
Track and measure security performance across the DevSecOps pipeline, using metrics like mean time to remediation (MTTR) to improve AppSec posture.
Security in SDLC and Agile Development
Both the traditional software development lifecycle (SDLC) and Agile development viewed security as an afterthought. Security teams would enter the process just before deployment, rather than sitting at the planning table. The challenges with this were:
Late-Stage Security Implementation
Introducing security late in the development process (typically just before deployment) was a reason for significant security bottlenecks. For example, identifying vulnerabilities at the end of the cycle would require significant rework, which would in turn delay releases and increase costs. In the absence of continuous testing, coding flaws or misconfigurations would go undetected for far too long.
Manual Security Processes in Agile Development
Agile development primarily focused on rapid iterations and frequent releases at the expense of security checks. Shortcuts taken to meet deadlines often left applications vulnerable to attacks. Furthermore, due to the lack of automation in processes, manual checks were unable to keep up with the rapid pace of Agile development.
Siloed Teams
In both SDLC and Agile, the three teams (Dev, Sec, Ops) worked in silos with minimal collaboration. Last-minute changes and lack of coordination resulted in chaos, friction, and miscommunication. This in turn increased turn around time (TAT) and delayed software releases, leading to a blame culture between departments.
High Remediation Costs
Late discovery of vulnerabilities and security gaps in the development cycle means re-work — leading to unplanned use of resources and time-delays in releases. On the other hand, failing to detect issues even late in the process means operational downtime and hefty penalties for compliance failures.
DevSecOps Vs DevOps
With SDLC and Agile development, most challenges were a result of a lack of ‘automation’ or ‘security’. DevOps solved it to a certain extent with increased emphasis on ‘automation’. While ‘security’ was no longer an afterthought like it was earlier, it wasn’t particularly a priority either. DevOps teams valued speed, stability, and efficiency in software delivery more than they valued security. The introduction of DevSecOps has now brought security into the fold, too.
aspect | devops | devsecops |
---|---|---|
focus | Focus predominantly on speed and efficiency of software delivery | Focus is equally distributed between speed, efficiency and security. |
security approach | Security is an afterthought — handled after development is complete | Security emphasis is throughout the software development lifecycle |
collaboration | Primarily between development and operations teams | Emphasis equally among development, security, and operations teams |
automation | Focuses on automating development, testing, and deployment | In addition, it automates also security testing and policy enforcement |
risk management | Risks are managed after development, often leading to delayed releases and increased costs | Risks are proactively managed throughout development, reducing late-stage vulnerabilities |
compliance | Compliance checks may occur after code development, leading to security bottlenecks | Compliance is integrated into the pipeline, ensuring adherence to regulations without slowing down delivery |
vulnerability detection | Vulnerabilities are often discovered late in the process, requiring significant rework | Vulnerabilities are identified early through tools like SAST, DAST, and ASPM |
agility and speed | Achieves speed by streamlining development and operations workflows | Maintains agility while ensuring security at every stage, preventing bottlenecks later |
cultural shift | Focuses on breaking down silos between development and operations | Extends this cultural shift to include security as a shared responsibility among all teams |
post-deployment monitoring | Focus is mainly on performance and uptime | In addition, includes security monitoring to detect vulnerabilities |
DevSecOps Architecture Diagram
List of useful DevSecOps Tools and Technologies and their purpose
Successful implementation of DevSecOps hinges on the choice of tools and how well they match your needs. Below is a list of key DevSecOps practices and their respective tools. At OpsMx, we believe in the power of open source, so the tools listed below are predominantly open source security/DevSecOps tools:
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Tools
SAST tools scan the source code for known vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and coding flaws. SAST tools perform code analysis, automated scanning, compliance, and standards enforcement. Some popular open-source SAST tools are SonarQube, Bandit, Snyk, etc.
Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) Tools
DAST tools simulate external attacks in realtime to examine a running application for robustness. DAST tools perform SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), runtime analysis, black box testing, etc. Some popular open-source DAST tools are OWASP ZAP, Arachni, SQLMap, etc.
Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
SCA tools analyze open source packages, libraries, dependencies, and third-party components for vulnerabilities and license issues. SCA tools perform license checks, dependency management, and risk assessment. Some popular open source SCA tools are Snyk, Trivy, and OWASP Dependency-Check.
Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Security Tools
IaC security tools monitor cloud environments for misconfigurations and security flaws by enforcing security policies. These tools perform automated security checks, detect infrastructure drift, and monitor compliance. Some popular open source IaC security tools are Kubescape, Checkov, Terrascan, and tfsc.
Secret Scanning and Management Tools
Secret scanning and secret management tools prevent sensitive information like API keys, tokens, and passwords from being hardcoded into the source code. They consistently scan the source code for accidentally exposed secrets to ensure secure storage and management. Some open-source tools for secret scanning and secret management are HashiCorp Vault, TruffleHog, Detect Secrets, and Conjur.
Binary/Image/Container Security
These tools scan binaries and container images for vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, compliance issues, and runtime security. Some open source tools that scan binaries and container images are Clair, Grype, Trivy, etc.
Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) Tools
CI/CD tools automate the entire build, test, and deployment process with integrated security checks in different stages of the delivery pipeline. Some open source CI/CD tools are Jenkins, GitLab, Kubernetes, etc.
Application Security Posture Management (ASPM)
ASPM tools provide real-time visibility into the security posture and integrate with other security tools to assist with vulnerability management and risk prioritization. There are no popular open-source tools for ASPM. But you can consider using OpsMx, which leverages the power of other open source tools.
Vulnerability Management Tools
Vulnerability management tools identify, prioritize, and mitigate vulnerabilities across the entire application lifecycle. They help with triage and prioritization, ensuring quick remediation of critical vulnerabilities. Some open-source vulnerability management tools are OpenVAS, Clair, and Nessus Essentials.
Monitoring and Incident Response Tools
Tools for monitoring facilitate real-time security threat detection and response. Incident response tools provide workflows and the context for managing incidents effectively. These tools include Splunk, PagerDuty, and SquadCast, among others. This category lacks good open-source alternatives.
Compliance Management Tools
Compliance management tools automate the enforcement of organizational policies and regulatory standards such as GDPR, HIPAA, NIST, FedRAMP, etc. These tools continuously monitor code and infrastructure for compliance adherence. Popular tools are OpsMx, Drata, etc.
Guidelines and Trends in DevSecOps
As DevSecOps continues to grow in popularity, more and more organizations are realizing the importance of security. Below are some key guidelines and trends shaping the future of DevSecOps and ensuring security practices remain effective and adaptive to emerging threats.
Application Security Posture Management (ASPM)
ASPM is turning into a cornerstone for modern DevSecOps practices amid growing complexity of techstacks. ASPM platforms provide comprehensive visibility into an application’s security posture, help prioritize vulnerabilities and automate policy enforcement to stay ahead of threats.
Shift-Left Security
Shift-Left Security is one of the true embodiments of DevSecOps philosophies because early identification of vulnerabilities and security gaps leads to lower cost for remediation and resource allocation. With growing sophistication of application stacks, shift-left prevents threats from breaching prod.
Developer Productivity
Developers are routinely overburdened and overwhelmed by alerts and vulnerabilities that need addressing. In order to improve efficiency and productivity, the use of developer-friendly tools and optimized security workflows is becoming necessary in enterprise DevSecOps teams.
SDLC Compliance
Strong regulations and strict sanctions around how businesses operate is translating into organizations increasing the surveillance around their delivery process. In order to comply with policies and avoid hefty fines, compliance monitoring across the entire SDLC is becoming the new norm.
Focus on Vulnerability Prioritization
Focus on risk-based vulnerability management is gaining traction as a result of increasing cyber threats. Security teams are addressing the most critical issues first by prioritizing vulnerabilities based on severity, criticality, and business impact, leading to efficient usage of resources.
Security as Code
Similar to the versioning of source code, versioning of security controls, policy and configuration checks is a growing trend of late. Called Security as Code (SaC), this practice helps in integrating and automating security with CI/CD pipelines to ensure consistency and reliability.
Challenges in Adopting DevSecOps
While DevSecOps brings numerous benefits to improving the speed and security of software delivery, organizations tend to face significant challenges adopting and implementing them.
Cultural Resistance to Change
Teams typically operate independently. Bringing cross-functional teams together to solve problems may encounter stiff resistance and friction. Organizations must understand that inculcating a shared responsibility for security is a gradual process.
Lack of Security Expertise
It’s unfair to expect developers to have DevSecOps expertise since they lack formal training in security. Upskilling developers or hiring specialists is crucial to overcoming this challenge.
Balancing Speed with Security
Due to rigorous security checks, the pace of development will inevitably slow down, causing friction with DevOps, who have optimized the delivery process for speed. Organizations must firmly establish their priorities and find cohesion between DevOps and security teams.
Tool Overload and Integration
Introducing multiple security tools into the development process can lead to complexity. Organizations must meticulously plan the integration of tools to fit in seamlessly without disrupting existing workflows.
False Positives and Alert Fatigue
A byproduct of automating security workflows is the excessive alerts generated, many of which are false positives. This can cause alert fatigue, overwhelm teams with alerts, and result in missed alerts.
Legacy Systems and Technical Debt
Many organizations continue to rely on legacy systems that weren’t built with security in mind. Integrating them with DevSecOps tools might seem too challenging or outright impossible due to incompatibility.
FAQs: Pain Points and Solutions Related to DevSecOps
How OpsMx Can Support Your DevSecOps Implementation
OpsMx helps enterprises with DevSecOps implementation, AppSec posture management, and secure software delivery to address critical security challenges in modern software development.
OpsMx Delivery Shield
For teams that already have an active DevOps ecosystem and are looking to integrate security modules, OpsMx Delivery Shield adds Application Security Posture Management (ASPM), unified visibility, compliance automation, and security policy enforcement to your existing application lifecycle. By leveraging your existing tools and processes, OpsMx provides a practical solution to accelerate and fortify software delivery.
SECURITY ADD-ONS
- Application Lifecycle Visibility
- Security Posture Evaluation
- Compliance Monitoring
- Policy Enforcement
- Open Source Risk Assessment
- Software Delivery Bill of Materials
- Vulnerability Management
OpsMx Secure Open Continuous Delivery
For teams just getting started in their DevOps journey and looking to build it up with security in mind, OpsMx Secure Open CD is the industry’s first software delivery and deployment solution specifically designed for software supply chain security. It combines a comprehensive GitOps multi-cloud platform with DevSecOps capabilities to automatically enforce policies and audit security compliance at the time of deployment.
DEVOPS + SECURITY
- Central DevSecOps Dashboard
- Multicloud and K8s deployments
- Automate Approvals
- Scalable Enterprise GitOps
- Governance and Audit Reports
- Delivery Intelligence
- Automated Verification & Rollback
- Application Lifecycle Visibility
- Security Posture Evaluation
- Compliance Monitoring
- Policy Enforcement
- Open Source Risk Assessment
- Software Delivery Bill of Materials
- Vulnerability Management
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