What is DevOps and how does it work
DevOps is a way of working that breaks down walls between development and operations teams. This means developers and IT operations work together instead of in separate silos, which helps companies build and release software faster.
The main goal is simple: get high-quality software to users quickly and reliably. DevOps does this through automation and collaboration, removing the slow handoffs that used to happen when development "threw code over the wall" to operations.
DevOps works through a continuous cycle of activities. You plan what to build, write the code, test it, and deploy it to production. Then you monitor how it's performing and use that feedback to improve the next version.
Key practices that make DevOps work include:
Continuous integration: Developers merge code changes frequently, catching problems early
Continuous delivery: Automated pipelines move code from development to production quickly
Infrastructure as code: Managing servers and networks using code instead of manual processes
Monitoring and feedback: Tracking application performance to guide improvements
This approach eliminates the traditional model where development teams would spend months building features, then hand them off to operations teams who might take weeks to deploy them.
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In this 12 page cheat sheet we'll cover best practices in the following areas of DevOps: secure coding practices, infrastructure security, monitoring and response.
What is DevSecOps and how does it enhance development workflows
DevSecOps stands for development, security, and operations working together. It takes the DevOps model and adds security as a core part of the process from day one.
The key difference is timing. Instead of checking security at the end, DevSecOps builds security checks into every step of development. This approach is called "shifting left" because you're moving security earlier in the timeline.
DevSecOps automates security testing just like DevOps automates other testing. Your code gets scanned for vulnerabilities, your containers get checked for security issues, and your infrastructure gets validated against security policies—all automatically as part of your regular development process.
The biggest change is cultural. Security becomes everyone's job, not just the security team's responsibility. Developers learn to write secure code, operations teams deploy secure infrastructure, and security teams provide guidance and tools rather than acting as gatekeepers.
DevOps vs DevSecOps critical differences that matter
While DevSecOps builds on DevOps, several key differences change how teams work and think about software delivery.
Security integration timing represents the most obvious difference. DevOps often treats security as a checkpoint before deployment—something you do after building your application. DevSecOps weaves security checks throughout the entire process, from the moment you write code until it's running in production.
Team collaboration models expand in DevSecOps. DevOps connects development and operations teams, but DevSecOps adds security teams as equal partners. This means security experts work alongside developers and operations staff throughout the project, not just at the end.
Automation scope grows significantly with DevSecOps. DevOps automates building, testing, and deploying applications. DevSecOps adds automated security scanning, vulnerability assessment, compliance checking, and policy enforcement to that list.
Risk management approaches differ in focus and timing. DevOps primarily manages operational risks like system downtime and performance issues. DevSecOps adds proactive security risk management, including threat modeling during design phases and automated attack path analysis in pre-deployment pipelines to identify exploitable chains before code reaches production.
Release velocity impact changes the speed equation. DevOps maximizes release speed, sometimes accepting security trade-offs. DevSecOps maintains that speed by running security checks in parallel with other processes—demonstrating that security and speed can coexist when controls are automated and integrated into CI/CD pipelines.
| Feature | DevOps | DevSecOps |
|---|---|---|
| Primary Focus | Speed and collaboration between dev and ops | Security integrated throughout the development lifecycle |
| Security Integration | Often a separate stage before deployment | Built-in from the beginning through every stage |
| Team Responsibility | Development and operations teams | Shared across development, security, and operations |
| Automation | CI/CD, IaC, monitoring | SAST, SCA, secrets scanning, IaC validation, policy-as-code enforcement |
| Risk Management | Operational risks (downtime, performance) | Security risks (vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, attack paths) |
| Compliance Impact | Manual audits; controls added late | Automated evidence collection; continuous compliance validation |
| Ownership Model | Dev owns code; Ops owns infrastructure | Shared ownership with security guardrails at every stage |
| Key Metrics | Lead time, deployment frequency, MTTR | Plus vulnerability MTTR, policy pass rate, secrets detected |
When to choose DevOps vs DevSecOps for your organization
Your choice between DevOps and DevSecOps depends on where you are now and what risks you face. Most organizations eventually need DevSecOps, but the path to get there varies.
Organizational maturity plays a big role in timing. Startups often begin with DevOps to move fast and test ideas quickly. As they grow and handle more sensitive data, transitioning to DevSecOps becomes essential for protecting customers and meeting compliance requirements. Organizations handling payment data (PCI DSS), health records (HIPAA), or operating in regulated sectors typically require DevSecOps-level controls from the start.
Compliance requirements can force the decision. If you work in healthcare, finance, or government, you likely need DevSecOps from the start. These industries have strict security and privacy rules that require built-in security controls and automated compliance checking.
Risk tolerance should guide your timeline. Applications handling financial transactions, personal health information, or other sensitive data need DevSecOps-level protection. The cost of a security breach far outweighs the investment in proper security practices. Organizations that shift security left typically reduce the time and cost to fix vulnerabilities by addressing them during development rather than after production deployment.
Existing security debt might accelerate your timeline. If your organization has accumulated security issues over time, DevSecOps provides a systematic way to identify and fix these problems while preventing new ones.
Consider these factors when making your decision:
Data sensitivity: What type of information does your application handle?
Regulatory environment: What compliance standards must you meet?
Current security posture: How many existing vulnerabilities need attention?
Team readiness: Do your developers have security training and tools?
11 DevSecOps Tools and The Top Use Cases in 2025
Learn how DevSecOps integrates security into development, enhances collaboration, and ensures secure software delivery without slowing down workflows.
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Cloud-native security challenges in DevOps and DevSecOps environments
Cloud environments create unique security challenges that both DevOps and DevSecOps teams must address. Traditional security approaches don't work well with dynamic, ephemeral infrastructure.
Ephemeral infrastructure means your containers and serverless functions come and go quickly. Traditional tools that rely on persistent agents or long-running scans often struggle to maintain coverage and visibility across resources that exist for minutes or hours. Agent installation overhead and scan duration can exceed container lifespans, creating security blind spots. Agentless, API-driven security assessment and Kubernetes-native admission controls maintain continuous coverage without installation overhead or performance impact on short-lived workloads.
Multi-cloud complexity multiplies the challenge. AWS uses Security Groups, Azure uses Network Security Groups, and GCP uses Firewall Rules—each with different syntax and capabilities. DevSecOps teams use policy-as-code frameworks like Open Policy Agent (OPA) with Rego or HashiCorp Sentinel to define security standards once and enforce them consistently across all cloud providers. For example, a single OPA policy can validate that no storage buckets are publicly accessible, regardless of whether they're S3, Azure Blob, or Cloud Storage.
Secrets management becomes critical in cloud environments. API keys, passwords, and certificates get scattered across code repositories, configuration files, and deployment scripts. Without proper management, these secrets can easily leak and compromise your entire system.
Container security risks include vulnerable base images, misconfigurations, and runtime threats. Unlike traditional servers, containers share the host operating system kernel, so a compromise in one container can potentially affect others.
Common cloud security challenges include:
Dynamic attack surfaces: Resources that change constantly
Inconsistent security policies: Different rules across cloud providers
Exposed secrets: Credentials scattered throughout your infrastructure
Container vulnerabilities: Flaws in images and runtime configurations
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Making the transition from DevOps to DevSecOps
Moving from DevOps to DevSecOps requires both cultural and technical changes. You can't just buy tools and expect transformation—you need to change how people think about security.
Cultural transformation comes first. Everyone needs to understand that security is their responsibility, not just the security team's job. This means training developers on secure coding practices and helping operations teams understand security implications of their infrastructure choices.
Incremental security automation works better than trying to change everything at once. Start by adding vulnerability scanning to your existing CI/CD pipeline. Once that's working smoothly, add more advanced tools like static code analysis and infrastructure security checks. A unified policy engine that spans code, pipelines, and runtime keeps security standards consistent across all environments and prevents policy drift as your toolchain grows.
DevSecOps maturity follows a five-stage progression:
Ad hoc (Level 1): Security reviews happen manually before major releases. Start by adding secrets scanning to repositories and basic vulnerability scanning to CI/CD pipelines.
Repeatable (Level 2): Security checks run automatically in pipelines but may be inconsistent across teams. Standardize SAST and SCA tools across all projects and establish baseline policies.
Automated (Level 3): Security gates block insecure code from reaching production. Implement IaC validation, container image scanning, and automated policy enforcement with clear pass/fail criteria.
Policy-as-Code (Level 4): Security standards are defined as code and enforced consistently across all environments. Deploy OPA or similar frameworks to validate configurations against compliance requirements (CIS, NIST, PCI DSS).
Measured & Optimized (Level 5): Security metrics drive continuous improvement. Track vulnerability MTTR, policy pass rates, and security debt trends. Use attack path analysis to prioritize remediation based on actual exploitability.
Your transition should follow a structured approach with measurable outcomes:
Assessment phase: Evaluate current security gaps and tool coverage. Target: Document top 10 security risks and existing tool inventory within 2 weeks.
Tool selection: Choose security tools that integrate with existing CI/CD pipelines. Target: Select and configure 3-5 core tools (secrets scanner, SAST, SCA, IaC validator) within 4 weeks.
Training phase: Upskill developers on secure coding practices. Target: 80% of developers complete OWASP Top 10 training and secure coding workshops within 8 weeks.
Pilot program: Start with 2-3 non-critical applications to refine processes. Target: Achieve <7 days MTTR for high-severity vulnerabilities and 95% IaC policy pass rate in pull requests within 12 weeks.
Full rollout: Expand DevSecOps practices across all development teams. Target: Zero critical vulnerabilities at deploy time and 100% automated security evidence collection within 6 months.
Bidirectional traceability: Map cloud security issues back to specific code commits and developers. When a misconfiguration or vulnerability appears in production, automated systems should identify the originating pull request, notify the responsible team, and create tickets in their workflow tools. This feedback loop prevents reintroduction of known issues and builds security awareness through direct accountability.
The key is making security feel natural, not burdensome. When security checks run automatically and provide clear, actionable feedback, developers embrace them rather than resist them.
GitOps vs. DevOps
While DevOps delineates collaboration and automation practices that emphasize infrastructure provisioning and continuous monitoring, GitOps extends its concepts by employing Git as the single source of truth for both application and infrastructure settings.
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Tools and technologies that power modern DevSecOps workflows
DevSecOps relies on automated tools that integrate security into your existing development workflow. These tools provide fast feedback and catch problems before they reach production.
Container security tools protect your containerized applications. Image scanners check for vulnerabilities in container images before deployment. Runtime protection monitors running containers for suspicious activity. Admission controllers enforce security policies in Kubernetes environments.
Code security solutions find problems at the source. Static application security testing tools analyze your source code for vulnerabilities. Software composition analysis tools scan open-source dependencies for known security issues. Secrets detection tools find hardcoded passwords and API keys in your code.
Pipeline security tools integrate directly into CI/CD workflows like Jenkins, GitLab CI, or GitHub Actions. They automatically block insecure code from reaching production and provide developers with immediate feedback about security issues.
Cloud security platforms monitor your production infrastructure continuously. Cloud security posture management (CSPM) tools continuously scan cloud configurations against security benchmarks like CIS and detect misconfigurations such as publicly exposed storage buckets or overly permissive network rules. Cloud workload protection platforms monitor running applications for threats.
These tools work at different stages of development:
Pre-commit tools: IDE plugins that give real-time security feedback
Build-time tools: Scanners that check code and containers during builds
Deploy-time tools: Validators that ensure deployments meet security standards
Runtime tools: Monitors that watch applications in production
Platform consolidation reduces complexity: Organizations often accumulate 10-15 separate security tools, each with its own console, alert format, and data model. Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPPs) unify CSPM (configuration management), CIEM (identity permissions), DSPM (data security), vulnerability management, and runtime threat detection in a single platform. This consolidation reduces tool sprawl, eliminates data silos, and speeds remediation by showing how different security issues connect to create exploitable attack paths.
How Wiz enables seamless DevOps to DevSecOps transformation
Wiz provides a unified platform that makes the transition from DevOps to DevSecOps smooth and natural. Instead of adding complexity, Wiz integrates security into your existing workflows.
Wiz Code shifts security left by working directly in your development environment. It scans infrastructure as code templates, finds exposed secrets, and checks dependencies for vulnerabilities—all before code reaches production. Developers get immediate feedback in their IDEs and pull requests.
The Wiz Security Graph connects everything together, showing how a vulnerability in development could be exploited in production. This context helps teams prioritize the most important security issues instead of getting overwhelmed by thousands of alerts.
Wiz's agentless approach scans your entire cloud environment without installing software on every server or container. This eliminates the performance overhead and maintenance burden of traditional security tools while providing complete visibility.
Attack path analysis shows how different security issues combine to create real risks. Instead of treating each vulnerability separately, Wiz shows how misconfigurations, exposed secrets, and vulnerable code work together to create exploitable attack paths. This shared context reduces alert fatigue by prioritizing toxic combinations—like an internet-exposed web server with a critical CVE, running with admin privileges, and accessing a database containing customer PII. Teams fix what actually creates business risk instead of chasing thousands of isolated findings.
Bidirectional traceability connects cloud security issues back to specific code and developers. When Wiz finds a problem in production, it shows exactly which code caused it and who can fix it. This creates the feedback loops essential for mature DevSecOps practices. Because the platform works across code, pipelines, cloud infrastructure, and runtime environments, security becomes a shared, collaborative practice embedded in daily workflows—not a late-stage gate that blocks releases.
Request a demo to see how Wiz's agentless CNAPP provides code-to-cloud visibility, graph-based attack path analysis, and bidirectional traceability—helping teams shift security left, prioritize real risks over noise, and defend runtime environments without slowing delivery velocity.
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