The saying “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link“, perfectly describes the security factor of software development.
Newspapers are full of security breach stories, still, businesses are not taking security precautions seriously. When asked, even the large enterprises do not want to spend much on security. Unlike the investment in business development and marketing and product development, multilevel security testing and fixes do not provide much return on investment.
A DevSecOps team should always take care of security testing activities while preparing the backlog estimation. Security testing efforts of a team can be optimized by automating the majority of the testing part with a well- designed CI/CD pipeline. Let’s have a look at some crucial points a DevSecOps team must consider for accelerated CI/CD cycle:
1. Web-scanner
DevSecOps professionals should use the dynamic security testing scripts (tools like ZAP, Webinspect) for all the cases where keys are used. Teams should include the dynamic security testing scripts in the deployment pipeline and these scripts should be triggered when the build is processed.
2. Code-scanner
Code analysis should always be a part of the build process to make the CI pipeline more effective. It can be done by adding code analysis tools to the pipeline like Fortify and Sonar.
3. Third party scanner
Developers usually work with many ready-to-use components to gain several coding features like logging, parsing JSON, XML data, importing or exporting data, web frameworks and many more. For a more effective CI pipeline, these third-party components must be scanned for security vulnerabilities. There are many tools available in the market to scan components for security threats and to prepare security breach reports.
4. Platform/Infrastructure scanner
DevSecOps teams should always add a task of scanning the security features of infrastructure and platforms. This process will totally depend on the server host, the structure of your application/software, and the network scanner that will keep an eye on every port listening and every installed software.
5. Extended unit testing
One of the important components of the backlog description is “definition of done”. It must add an extra test case for every feature or story. For instance, you can follow the three W (When, what, who) method, for every given feature or backlog these question will be asked- when will this feature be accessible, what are the provided inputs for this feature, and who is authorized to use this story? Unit test automation cases should be added according to this theory. You can try tools like JUnit and cucumber.
Source- Jile
Also Read- What’s Stopping You from Achieving Your DevSecOps Goals!
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