Investing in application development for so many months, just to face to post release vulnerabilities, bugs and glitches can damage the product’s reputation. To prevent this businesses are embracing shift left testing, which can integrate security measure and testing right from the beginning of development cycle. Shift left testing combined with DevSecOps practices supports collaboration between development security and operations team which ensures rapid and quality deliveries.

This blog explores fundamentals of Shift left testing in DevSecOps and actional practices to implement it effectively.

What is Shift Left in DevSecOps?

The term “Shift Left” was introduced by Larry Smith in 2001, which means moving the tasks to the left in development process. In other words, Shift Left in DevSecOps is a breakthrough security practice that is conducted at the initial phase of software development lifecycle (SDLC).

It is designed to identify defects or security risks at the earliest before it can lead to inefficiencies and high cost expenditures. Integrating Shift Left in DevSecOps can build an environment that encourages early identification of defects and security vulnerabilities, immediate feedback and quality control in coding.

Benefits of Shift Left in DevSecOps

Shift Left in the context of DevSecOps offers numerous benefits. Here’s a breakdown of each benefits:

Ensures Vulnerability Detection from the Start

Integrating security testing in the initial phase of the software development lifecycle lets to identify potential risks and vulnerabilities at the earliest as soon as the coding is done. This proactive approach prevents from security flaws getting deeply embedded within the code, which can expensive to fix at the later phases. Continuous static application security testing (SAST) and dynamic testing helps in detecting the risks quickly and ensure timely mitigation. These tests reduce the possibilities of attack surface.

Reduces Cost Expenditure

When security issues are addressed during the initial phase of software development, it is far less expensive prevents future costs of fixing them after the development phase. On the other hand, when vulnerabilities are identified later, they need comprehensive rework, patches or system downtime all of which significantly increases cost expenditure. By implementing shift lest test practices, security teams can save costs in expensive remediation efforts, prevent regulatory fines and reduce high risk data breaches.

Faster Time to Market

Teams can prevent last minute bugs and glitches that can delay the product releases if security testing is integrated from the start. Early security verification means relatively lower vulnerabilities and bugs to fix during the final testing phase. This approach enables DevSecOps teams to deliver high quality and secure software much faster while maintaining competitive advantage over others. And helps meet customer expectations without compromising on quality and security.

Improves Code Quality

Implementing security testing with functional testing enhances the overall code quality by identifying vulnerabilities and bugs early. Tests like integration tests, automated unit tests, and security scans helps maintain secure codebases. This constant verification minimizes technical debt and ensures that security in code is uncompromised for speed and quality. This results in reliable and well managed software.

Builds Culture of Security and Responsibility

Shift left helps development, operations and security teams to cultivate a mindset where security is major responsibility for everyone in the team and to make it an integral part of their work everyday. Developers become aware of secure coding practices and security becomes part of workflows. This cultural shift results in more teams that are highly vigilant and prioritizes security. Besides this, it also helps reduce human errors and encourage long term security resilience.

Shift Left Security Tools

Shift left security tools are important for integrating security tests early in the software development lifecycle (SDLC). Here’s a breakdown of key tools used in shift left security.

Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

SAST is key testing tool in shift left security and it is used to address security vulnerabilities before they transmit through SDLC. This tool analyzes source code for vulnerabilities and risks without running the application. It helps development team identify vulnerabilities like SQL injection, and cross site scripting during the coding phase. Besides this, it effortlessly integrates directly into IDE’s, offers real time feedback to developers and enables quick resolution of security flaws.

Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST)

DAST tool help simulate the real-world attacks on applications that are running and detects runtime vulnerabilities. It mainly prioritizes on testing applications in dev/test environments, uncovers issues that crop up during execution. This outside in approach supports static testing by addressing vulnerabilities like insecure configurations and authentication flaws.

Software Composition Analysis (SAC)

SCA tools scan the applications for insecure dependencies, open source components and third-party libraries. They offer valuable insights into on the entire dependency tree and helps teams to replace risky or vulnerable components early in the software development. By detecting risks related to external software, SCA minimizes the probability of supply chain attacks and ensures licensing requirements are met.

Runtime Application Self Protection (RASP)

RASP tools monitor applications during runtime to identify and blocks suspicious activity in real time. They offer telemetry about threats and vulnerabilities in detail and respond to attacks by preventing exploitation. RASP acts as last line of defense when other security measures fail. It ensures reliable and strong protection against runtime threats.

Interactive Application Security Testing (IAST)

IAST tools embed instrumentation agents within the application that is running, to monitor its activity and behavior in real time during automated or functional tests. This hybrid approach combines dynamic and static testing to enable identification of vulnerabilities, such as cross site scripting (XSS), SQL injection and insecure configurations with high accuracy and low false positives.

Secret Scanning Tools

Secret scanning automatically detect sensitive information like API keys, tokens, certificates and passwords that is embedded in source code repositories. Integrating secret scanning at the start of development cycle helps teams remediate risks and leaks before code reaches the production which reduce vulnerabilities and enhances compliance with security policies. By scanning pull requests and code commits, they prevent accidental exposure of secrets that may result in unauthorized breaches or access.

Container Image Scanning Tools

Container image scanning tools scan container images for vulnerabilities before they are implemented into production environments. By assessing container registries and CI/CD pipelines, they make sure deployments of microservices and cloud native applications are secure. Container scanning is specifically valuable in modern DevOps process where containers are widely accepted.

Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)

CSPM tools analyze cloud environments to detect misconfigurations and compliance risks right from the start. They help in automating security policy enforcement which is based on organizational standards. It minimizes manual efforts and also improves cloud security posture.

Web Application Firewalls (WAF)

WAF’s secure web applications by filtering and monitoring HTTP traffic to prevent suspicious requests. They do not fix the vulnerabilities of underlying code, however they can mitigate risks by preventing exploitation of common attack vectors.

Best Practices for Shift Left

Shift left security strategy can be implemented effectively when the efficient practices are followed. Here’s a breakdown for some of the key best practices:

Develop a Comprehensive Security Strategy

Establish clear security policies and standards to meet security teams needs. Create a strategic roadmap for long-term improvements and iterations, and to prioritize high-risk areas which is based on risk analysis and incident history.

Analyze and Map the Current Development Process

Assess current workflows to identify zones where security checks can be integrated without operational disruption. Monitor security development lifecycle from design to deployment and highlight optimal stages, for automated and manual security assessments.

Involve Security Teams from Beginning

Engage security experts in the entire development lifecycle including design and planning phases and not just during testing or deployment phase. And, maintain collaboration between development, operations, and security teams to make security as top priority from day one.

Integrate Automated Security Solutions

Integrate automated security tools such as static code analysis, container security, vulnerability scanning within CI/CD pipelines. And, make use of developer friendly tools to provide real-time feedback and remediation guidance, and to reduce the efforts for developers.

Provide Training to Developers on Secure Coding

Offer continuous training and resources to developers on implementing secure coding practices, and make them aware about common security vulnerabilities. Establish a culture where security is a collective responsibility and not just a mere task.

Continuously Review Code and Implement Pair Programming

Perform regular code reviews with a focus on security. Use pair programming or peer reviews to identify security vulnerabilities early and share security knowledge across the team.

Integrate Security into the DevOps Toolchain

Ensure that security tools are integrated effortlessly into the current development and deployment toolchain. Tools such as OWASP ZAP, SonarQube, Snyk, Aqua Security, Jenkins are most commonly used for static analysis, dynamic testing, open-source scanning, and container security.

Final Thoughts

By implementing the above best practices, shift left security in devsecops can be successfully implemented. To address security vulnerabilities in DevSecOps workflows, Akto integrates shift left security tools into its comprehensive API security platform. It offers Static Application Security Testing (SAST), Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) for early code analysis and vulnerability detection. Akto effortlessly integrates with CI/CD pipelines to automate the security testing. Besides this, it also supports container security by scanning docker images and allows open source scanning through integration with tools such as Snyk. These all inclusive security features helps security teams to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities at the earliest to ensure reliable and strong security throughout software development lifecycle.

Book a demo today and see how Akto can be a perfect security solution for your DevSecOps teams.!