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| Mobile DevSecOps |
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How Mobile DevSecOps Can Help You Build Secure Apps Faster and Safer?
Mobile apps are expected to generate over $935 billion in revenue by 2023. However, mobile application development also faces many challenges and risks such as device fragmentation, network connectivity, user privacy and data leakage. How to keep your mobile application safe, fast and reliable?
The answer is mobile DevSecOps. It is a combination of DevOps and security practices that integrate security throughout the mobile application development lifecycle. The goal is to develop secure applications faster and more securely by automating security testing and integrating security into the development process.
In this blog post, we'll explore the benefits, challenges and best practices of mobile DevSecOps. Also, some examples are provided to help you get started with this technology.
What are DevOps and security practices?
- DevOps is a set of practices that aims to improve collaboration and efficiency between development and operations teams, by automating and streamlining the software delivery process. DevOps enables faster time to market, higher quality and lower costs for software products.
- Security practices are the methods and techniques that are used to protect software from malicious attacks such as encryption, authentication, authorization and vulnerability scanning. It ensures the confidentiality, integrity and availability of software products.
Mobile app development faces unique challenges and risks such as device fragmentation, network connectivity, user privacy and data breaches. Therefore, it is essential to adopt DevOps and security practices to ensure the quality and security of mobile apps.
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Why Mobile DevSecOps?
Mobile DevSecOps is the application of DevOps and security practices to mobile app development. It has many benefits for both developers and users such as:
- Faster time to market: Mobile DevSecOps enables faster delivery of new features and updates to mobile apps, by automating the build, test and release process. This reduces the time and effort required for manual testing and debugging.
- Increased security: Performing continuous and automated security testing throughout the development lifecycle. This helps to identify and fix vulnerabilities and defects early and often.
- Reduced costs: It reduce the need for expensive security tools and experts. And also reduces the risk of security breaches and incidents, which can result in financial losses and reputational damage.
- Improved compliance: It helps to comply with various regulations and standards that apply to mobile app security such as GDPR, PCI-DSS, HIPAA, or OWASP. And helps to document and audit the security activities and results.
What are the challenges of Mobile DevSecOps?
Mobile DevSecOps is not without its challenges. Some of the common obstacles that hinder the adoption of Mobile DevSecOps are:
- Lack of awareness and understanding of Mobile DevSecOps: Many organizations are not familiar with the concept and benefits of Mobile DevSecOps. They may have misconceptions or doubts about its feasibility and effectiveness.
- Lack of resources and expertise: Some organizations do not have enough resources or expertise to implement on it. And may lack the necessary tools, skills or processes to integrate security into their mobile app development lifecycle.
- Lack of integration between security and development teams: And lots of organizations have siloed or isolated security and development teams that do not communicate or collaborate well with each other. This is maybe having different goals, priorities or workflows that create conflicts or gaps in their mobile app security.
How to implement Mobile DevSecOps?
Implementing Mobile DevSecOps requires a cultural shift as well as a technical shift. It involves creating a security culture, adopting a DevSecOps mindset, automating security testing and embedding security into the development process. Here are some steps to follow:
- Create a security culture: This means that security should be everyone's responsibility, not just the security teams. Security should be embedded in the culture and values of the organization. To create a security culture, organizations can use gamification techniques, reward systems or security champions to motivate and incentivize their employees to follow security best practices.
- Adopt a DevSecOps mindset: DevSecOps philosophy dictates that security must be integrated into the development process instead of being an afterthought or an isolated phase. It must be configured in tandem with the organization's business objectives and catering to customer requirements. To assimilate a DevSecOps approach, businesses may implement Scaled Agile Frameworks (SAFe), Lean Software Development (LSD) or Continuous Delivery (CD) techniques to assist with their Mobile DevSecOps plan.
- Automate security testing: Throughout the development lifecycle, continuous and automatic security testing should be implemented to ensure various aspects of mobile app security are covered. These could include code quality, static analysis, dynamic analysis, penetration testing and compliance auditing. Specialized tools like AppScan, Veracode or Checkmarx may be used by organizations to scan and analyze mobile app code for defects and vulnerabilities.
- Embed security into the development process: Intertwine security into the development process by seamlessly incorporating security measures into the development tools and workflows commonly employed to create, test and deploy mobile apps. This should be a translucent process for the development and security teams. Technologies like Bitbucket, GitLab or CodeCommit can be leveraged by organizations to regulate their mobile app code repositories and established pipelines. Likewise, tools such as Firebase, App Center or TestFlight can be utilized to test and dispense mobile apps.
Conclusion: The future of Mobile DevSecOps
The future of Mobile DevSecOps is the future of mobile security. To adopt Mobile DevSecOps, organizations can build secure apps faster and safer and gain a competitive edge in the mobile market.
