Cybercrime is quickly evolving into an escalating issue across the physical and virtual universe. More than 80% of online businesses have reported an increase in cyberattacks since 2020.
The digitization of finance has further widened avenues for hackers to create loopholes in financial infrastructure with sophisticated tools and techniques. Wherever there is a software application or a network involved, cybercriminals infiltrate the system to steal sensitive personal information and financial credentials. Vulnerable financial applications don’t stand a chance before the mushrooming attacks and give way to compromised data, loss of money, identity theft, and data breaches.
Nipping vulnerabilities in the bud
As responsible facilitators of digital banking, payments, and lending services, fintech companies take cybersecurity very seriously. According to the Sixth Annual Bank Survey, more than 70% of fintechs vow to treat information security as their top concern in 2022. They adopt technologies, tools, and even philosophies that will help them nip vulnerabilities right in the bud.
Transition to DevSecOps
Standing at the forefront of technological innovation, fintechs need to deliver secure deployments, application releases, and updates at supersonic speed. But as with every new-age technology, fintech APIs are prone to security risks. These risks reduce go-to-market speed, delay update releases and impair code quality.
Even though standard practices such as DevOps delivers tremendous deployment velocity with zero downtime, cloud readiness, robust security, and compliance management, it still fails to address security risks at the grass-root level. That’s why financial software developers mandate the need to integrate security into the DevOps process. They began transitioning towards the DevSecOps to build secure and efficient applications at top speed.
DevSecOps quickly evolved as the future of financial software development, as it made cybersecurity a fundamental part of the production pipeline, which comprises architecture design, coding, and testing phases. Today, it is a crucial application development methodology for successfully developing fintech applications in regulated and unregulated domains.
What is DevSecOps?
DevSecOps, a blend of development, security, and operations, refers to the adoption of security right at the beginning of the software development lifecycle (SDLC). It is more a philosophy than a tech approach that calls for increased collaboration between development, security, and operation teams.
It resonates deeply with the view of Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) which goes, “Security can be achieved only when it has been designed in. Applying security measures as an afterthought is a recipe for disaster.”
This is exactly what DevSecOps solves for.
Why DevSecOps?
During the days of DevOps, security was included late in the lifecycle only after the development and operation phase. Technological advancements in cloud platforms, microservices, and containers could not move forward, as security turned out to be a major bottleneck. Catching security issues late in the cycle resulted in a lot of rework and late releases. These were some of the reasons why fintech application developers shifted to agile DevSecOps practices for quick and modern application development and deployment.
By shifting security left, DevSecOps integrates testing checks between the development and operation functions of every sprint. It integrates security into DevOps by tackling issues within Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) pipelines. In doing so, DevSecOps accelerates software delivery, reduces the duration between code change, production, deployment, and release while reducing security risks.
Resolving contentions
The fundamental area of contention between development, security, and operation teams is their change implementation, security monitoring, and stability principles. They become a source of friction that often leads to lags in the software development cycle. DevSecOps serves as an effective tool to resolve this friction by providing a culture that empowers the teams to work in sync.
Functions of DevSecOps
DevSecOps aims at designing novel solutions that simplify complex processes within the agile framework. It ensures that customers suffer no technical glitches after deployment or release of any update, or application.
Encompassing threat modeling and security testing processes in the pipelines saves time, effort, and cost. The automation in security testing helps test for vulnerabilities keeping futuristic risk possibilities in mind. Security reports can be easily generated to identify risk patterns in CI and CD. The continuous feedback process at every phase of development and code integration strengthens rectification and delivery infrastructure.
4 simple steps to develop a DevSecOps culture
For sustained focus on security and application effectiveness, companies need to build a DevSecOps culture. Developing a ‘Security as Code’ philosophy is a vital step towards creating this culture. It calls for consistent, compliant, and collaborative efforts between development, operations, and security teams.
Follow the steps below to make DevSecOps culture a breeze.
- Garner cooperation — Team silos and conflicts are key reasons why DevSecOps tends to fail in most companies. Garner cooperation through knowledge sharing and reward mechanisms that promote continuous improvement.
- Grant authority and autonomy — Nobody likes dictatorships. Authorize your teams to identify and resolve issues on their own. This autonomy will boost their solidarity and collaboration.
- Appoint strong leaders — Groom or bring in leaders who prioritize security. Make security a top-down mandate. This is a crucial step to building a DevSecOps culture.
- Educate and align — Educate team members on the importance of security, and align the learnings towards DevSecOps tasks. Focus on risk training while also briefing security teams about DevOps methodology.
The fundamental goal of the exercise is to make cybersecurity an organization-wide priority, with DevSecOps as a crucial tool.
Crucial imperative for fintech application development
A common myth is that developing applications with security in mind impedes innovation. But the security left DevSecOps methodology steers innovation in the right direction and saves a lot of time, effort, and cost.
If you are in the business of developing fintech applications, then it’s imperative that you deploy DevSecOps tools and processes as an organization-wide philosophy. As forerunners in implementing the DevSecOps philosophy, we deliver pre-built workflows and AI-powered automation capabilities to deliver secured risk-based authentication at every step. We redefine the software development lifecycle process to accelerate software deployment, product quality, and controlled release cycles and processes.
Want to know more about how your business can benefit from the DevSecOps process?
Ping us at business@m2pfintech.com.
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