Security hygiene starts with DevSecOps

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Hybrid cloud, open source software, and DevOps methodologies provide continuous delivery of high-quality software. Knowing that the only constant with both development practices and security is change, it's always a good time to take a fresh look at upping your game with security. Especially as developer teams are pushed to deliver significant benefits and deploy quickly. 

In a traditional DevOps process, security often doesn’t get involved until the integration and test phase, just before deployment. In fact, one study found that 27% of respondents admitted their application development and DevOps teams don’t work with their cybersecurity teams for fear it will slow them down (source:  Enterprise Strategy Group, Securing Cloud-native Applications, March 2021). However, If security issues are found late in the process, it can cause significant disruption and delays. It can also have a long-term adverse effect on team interaction. 

 A DevSecOps culture brings security into the DevOps fold, enabling development teams to secure what they build at their pace. 

But what is the outcome of moving to DevSecOps? It has several benefits, including:

Sources: IBM, Cost of a Data Breach, July 2022 and  2022 Snyk State of Cloud Security

However, there are also potential drawbacks to integrating security into the SDLC. Because it involves shifting some amount of security work onto developers, 44% of organizations are concerned this will overburden developers, and 46% of developers see security tasks as disruptive to the development process, according to the 2022 Snyk State of Cloud Security report. That demonstrates a need for security tools built specifically for developers—ones designed to minimize the burden of security testing and the disruption to the development process.

Two key ways to reduce the developer burden are:

1. Keep developers in their existing tools (as opposed to swiveling between applications) 
2. Automate the testing process 

Easy self-service security tools integrated into the existing development platform makes finding and fixing security issues less disruptive for developers for secure and efficient releases.

New data also finds organizations that involve developers in security much earlier—ideally from the very beginning—are able to systematically and easily manage vulnerabilities and experience developer efficiencies, speed, and scale.

Source:  Snyk Customer Value Study, Oct. 2022

Using Bitbucket Cloud and Snyk to reduce security vulnerabilities, speed deployments and increases efficiencies 

For Bitbucket Cloud users, Snyk offers native integration to secure all of the critical components of their applications from code to cloud. This includes the ability to identify and remediate vulnerabilities and licensing issues throughout the SDLC in code and open source dependencies, including container and Kubernetes security, without ever leaving Bitbucket. Users simply click on a tab within Bitbucket to access security features. 

Snyk uses software configuration analysis to find vulnerabilities and licensing issues in open source dependencies. It scans pull requests before merging to test projects directly from the repository. Snyk also provides real-time SAST that scans source code in minutes with no build needed. Finding and automatically fixing container and workload vulnerabilities, before workloads ever hit production, is another Snyk benefit. 

With Snyk and Bitbucket Cloud, security is also embedded into CI/CD workflows via Bitbucket Pipes. The Snyk pipe adds automated security testing to scan and monitor for vulnerabilities to prevent any from passing through the build process. 

Snyk provides a single place to see all codebase vulnerabilities in Bitbucket Cloud. A dashboard conveniently displays the total number of vulnerabilities in repositories grouped by a risk score. This Snyk score helps teams prioritize what to work on and is paired with contextual information to prioritize what to fix first, such as:

• CVSS score
• Exploit availability
• How long an exploit has been in the wild
• Availability of a fix

Developer-first security helps make security proactive instead of reactive. Developers can quickly test code, create Jira tickets, and fix vulnerabilities and licensing issues, all without ever leaving Bitbucket. Security goes from being an inconvenient afterthought to a natural part of the developer’s daily life without slowing them or the delivery down. 

Learn how you can shift to DevSecOps with integrated, developer-first security.  Check out this special 25% discount for 1-year of Snyk Business for SCA and SAST. 

Sources:

1. Enterprise Strategy Group, Securing Cloud-native Applications, March 2021
2. IBM, Cost of a Data Breach, July 2022
3. Snyk State of Cloud Security
4. Snyk Customer Value Study, Oct. 2022