Despite most developers and managers being well aware of the concept of DevSecOps, it is still often confused with a number of related processes and concepts. This is particularly true for the Department of Defense (DoD) contractors because they have long been encouraged to use a related process known as agile development. 

Since agile development has been around for more than a decade, there is a tendency for organizations to regard DevSecOps as an extension, or even a synonym, for it. In reality, though, the two approaches are distinct. The objectives of both approaches are similar: balancing speed and agility, detecting risk early and both focus on cloud-native security and performance. 

However, while DevSecOps does build on some agile development principles, such as the continuous integration and delivery of software systems in cycles, its key emphasis from the beginning of the process is to integrate security features, while Agile only focuses on delivering software.

In this article, we’ll look at the key differences between agile development and genuine DevSecOps processes, and how each complements the other.

DevSecOps vs. Agile Development

The difference between DevSecOps and agile development methodologies can be understood in reference to one aspect of software development: security. When, where and who implements security in software development varies between the two approaches.

Agile development methodologies focus on iterative development cycles, in which feedback is continuously reintegrated into ongoing software development. However, even in mature agile development processes, security is still often added to software as an afterthought. This should not be read as blaming software developers for often underestimating the potential harm from malware or overlooking the importance of cybersecurity. 

Rather, in many firms, it is simply not the responsibility of developers to think about the security implications of their code, because software will be passed to the security team before release.

DevSecOps takes security and puts it on the same level as continuous integration and delivery. DevSecOps methodologies emphasize security at the very earliest stages of development and make security an important part of overall software quality.

In essence, these approaches shift the program manager’s perspective away from making sure that software is in compliance or meets a specification or audit, to ensuring that the code is written correctly and securely and that it’s deployed in a repeatable manner.

The Changing Culture of the DoD

The adoption of DevSecOps methodologies is critical for DoD contractors because these methodologies reflect DoD’s own modernization strategy. Following high-profile vulnerabilities being discovered in all types of systems, DoD seems to have released that cybersecurity weaknesses are not just a potential threat to critical defense data, but also impose a significant operational bottleneck on the continuous delivery of functionality.

At the moment, even those firms who possess a mature agile development framework can find that the multiple security checks and compliance processes that must be performed on software, prior to shipping, can detrimentally impact on their ability to deliver iterative software improvements. This is the issue that the transition to DevSecOps seeks to overcome, by attempting to shift organizations’ approach to cybersecurity away from compliance, and toward genuine security consciousness.

At the same time, analysts are aware that shifting responsibility for cybersecurity onto developers will be uncomfortable, and potentially dangerous, for many DoD contractors. Developers working on the base code for military software do not have – and are not expected to have – an exhaustive appreciation of all of the contexts in which this will be deployed, and exactly which systems their software will be required to interface with.

Automation and New Models

In response to these concerns, DoD contractors are reappraising the DevSecOps model and thinking seriously about how it can be deployed in contexts where continuous service delivery is key. There are three key ways in which this is happening.

The first is the rise of automation. The types of large-scale, multicloud infrastructures that most contemporary DoD projects rely on can often necessitate repetitive, ongoing maintenance and security assessment across both development and security teams. DevSecOps replaces these human checks with automated systems: Instead of requiring a person to go through checklists of hundreds of controls, this is done automatically as part of the software development and supply process pipeline. 

The second key element in the transition to DevSecOps is endpoint security. The types of monolithic development processes that DoD contractors traditionally worked with are not suited to the contemporary deployment environment of many DoD projects. In these traditional methods, systems were built as discrete holes, with no expectation that data would be exposed as it moved between components. 

This is now an obsolete approach: In DevSecOps processes, virtual private networks are used to provide security and encrypt data as it moves within a network, and the principle of least privilege reduces staff access to small portions of It environments. 

Thirdly, a new generation of younger military and civilian personnel in the DoD, many of them trained in the commercial sector rather than entering the military directly from college, are bringing corporate approaches to the development of military software. This is seen in the exponential increase in the utilization of cloud services in DoD applications, and more dynamic and distributed managerial frameworks that distribute security responsibility across entire organizations, rather than having this as the sole remit of a dedicated security team.

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Moving to a truly DevSecOps methodology is likely to be a challenge for many contractors. However, just as in the last decade many firms have had to redesign their development lifecycles in order to be agile, now they will need to achieve secure development lifecycles in order to stay competitive.

If you are looking to make this shift, you should also recognize that you are not alone. DoD is working actively with its partners in order to facilitate the roll-out of DevSecOps processes and to make commercial tools and techniques available and useful for military contractors because the department recognizes the value of this methodology for the software they commission. 

This is seen most clearly in the recent updates to Microsoft Azure Government, though you should also be aware that many of the resources recently released by the Defense Logistics Agency are also focused on the transition to DevSecOps.

In short, whilst the transition to DevSecOps may be challenging, it will be no more so than the earlier shift to agile development. To make this shift, however, firms should draw on the resources available to them, recognize the value of integrating security into their development workflows and build on existing agile frameworks.