CloudPassage
today announced results of a survey revealing the security challenges
companies face on the path to adopting continuous development methods
such as DevOps. CloudPassage surveyed 102 information security
professionals attending the 2016 RSA USA Conference this week to
understand how organizations are using the cloud, the dynamics between
security and DevOps, and associated challenges and perceived benefits
for integrating security and DevOps.
Key Findings
- 58 percent of respondents said their company brings security into the design stage of a product lifecycle.
- But only 50 percent of respondents believe that security is capable of moving as fast as new release cycles.
- 65 percent cited a lack of resources (i.e. talent
and budget) and siloed departments as the biggest barriers to getting
security into release cycles earlier.
- 64 percent said they have a mixed or hybrid cloud deployment; only 8 percent reported not having cloud infrastructure.
"For organizations to stay competitive today, they need a
faster way to continuously innovate and release new products and
services. As such, continuous development methods such as DevOps are
becoming commonplace among the most innovative, successful companies,"
said Sami Laine, chief technologist at CloudPassage. "However, with
these methods, security often gets left out or drags behind. Our survey
results demonstrate that organizations must find a way to integrate
security with DevOps if they want to realize the benefits of continuous
delivery and stay safe at the same time."
Survey Analysis
Companies Lack Infrastructure to Support Continuous Innovation
Two-thirds (65 percent) of security professionals cited
both lack of resources (i.e. talent and budget) and siloed departments
as the biggest barriers to getting security earlier into release cycles.
Lack of resources was reported as the main barrier by 34 percent of the
respondents. Fewer respondents, 18 percent, said security would slow
down the release cycle. Eight percent said they believe "DevOps derails
security."
Security Is Moving Toward Continuous Software Delivery
When asked the stage at which security is brought into
software or product development release cycles, more than half of
respondents (58 percent) said security is introduced during phase one,
the concept and design phase. A quarter of respondents (22 percent) said
security is brought in during phase two, the coding and implementation
phase.
Mixed Emotions on Security Moving as Fast as Releases
While more than half of respondents (58 percent) said
security is brought into the development lifecycle early, over half of
respondents (51 percent) disagreed and or did not know if security is
capable of moving as fast as product or service release cycles.
Benefits of Integrating Security and DevOps Span the Business
One-third (33 percent) of security professionals said
the biggest business benefit for integrating security into DevOps
methods is better security, faster. Twenty-five percent of respondents
said they believe the biggest benefit is new applications without delays
caused by security. Twenty-four percent said the driver is improved
relationships between DevOps and security teams.
Most Businesses Have Mixed Cloud Environments
Nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of IT security
professionals characterized their organization's cloud deployment as
being "mixed or hybrid." Alternatively, 16 percent of respondents
described their cloud deployment as private, 13 percent said they
operate in the public cloud, and just 8 percent of respondents said they
do not have any cloud infrastructure.
Jon Oltsik, Senior Principal Analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group:
"The primary trend we see is companies trying to use their existing
technologies and processes for cloud, for agile IT, and that makes
sense. They're trying to get ROI on the tools that they know, but
typically that doesn't work," says Oltsik, who advises companies to look
at what they have, but also what they need to adjust in a new agile
world. "You need systems that can be flexible for a heterogeneous
environment, on-premise and off-premise. Typically, traditional controls
weren't designed for that, and if you try to force fit them they're not
very accommodating to that kind of environment." (More)
David Mortman, Contributing Analyst, Securosis: "The
important thing about DevOps is that you are engaging in a culture of
sharing, measuring and automation... I think the big change is, for a
lot of organizations, they're very siloed. Dev does Dev only, QA does QA
only, Ops does Ops only, and there's not a lot of communication between
the teams... They have a whole slew of competing concerns, but the more
each side understands each other's wants and needs, the better they can
communicate but also the better they can be sympathetic in
understanding how things need to work or what needs to happen to
change."