DEVOPSdigest

Amid growing pressure to enhance productivity and maintain a competitive edge, organizations are streamlining their application development processes. While increasingly integrating DevSecOps and Generative AI (GenAI) into their workflows, development teams must align to safeguard against application security threats and manage risks effectively.

A recent report commissioned by ArmorCode from Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) examines the state of AppSec amid the surge in GenAI and DevSecOps integration. Findings reveal that AI creates new gaps such as malicious code ingestion which creates challenges between developer and security teams, highlighting the urgent need to evolve DevSecOps practices to mitigate challenges and improve cross-team collaboration.

Enhancing Collaboration: Transitioning to Modern Application Security

The AppSec landscape has significantly evolved in recent years with the widespread adoption of DevSecOps practices and increased use of GenAI in software development. Traditionally, application security focused on managing vulnerabilities and deficiencies post-development, whereas DevSecOps integrates security practices throughout the entire software development lifecycle, enabling earlier security testing. However, despite its goal to bridge the gap between development and security teams, this transition also often creates friction between the teams.

Siloed development and security approaches hinder collaboration between teams, making it difficult to deliver secure software and address vulnerabilities effectively. The complexity introduced by AI and the need to secure hybrid cloud environments further compound these obstacles. To overcome them, improved integration, tools that focus on GenAI risks associated with code automation and visibility between security and development teams are essential.

Consequently, organizations must modernize their AppSec programs to integrate DevSecOps and AI. To meet this need, many organizations adopt a best-of-breed tools approach, building customized ecosystems aligning tools with specific security functions. While these tools are well-designed for their task, fragmented tooling can reduce visibility without having an independent governance layer overseeing scanners and security solutions to aggregate findings and identify all risks.

Key Security Team Challenges Amid Growing DevSecOps Adoption

AppSec teams often face overwhelming workloads and insufficient resources to secure code at the pace of development, with some organizations having over 100 developers per AppSec engineer. The ESG report indicated that DevSecOps adoption is expected to increase from 38% today to 48% over the next 24 months. While this shift aims to integrate security earlier in the software development lifecycle, the report found that many security teams are still under strain and have limited visibility into the development process.

This challenge stems from difficulties in implementing consistent security tools and processes that support developers without hindering efficiency. In fact, 42% of security teams lack visibility into how developers secure their code, and this is exacerbated by inadequate security checks amid rising threats from sophisticated attackers.

Navigating the Future of AI and Enhancing AppSec with Independent Governance

Generative AI offers significant opportunities for modernization but also introduces news risks and intensifies pressure on DevSecOps. Currently, 97% of organizations use or plan to use generative AI in software development. While AI enhances efficiency, it also raises security concerns, including identifying sensitive data shared with GenAI, malicious code ingestion, and securing APIs related to GenAI usage.

As organizations increasingly adopt DevSecOps practices and AI, application security posture management (ASPM) solutions can play a crucial role in modernizing AppSec programs. ASPM solutions can provide an independent governance layer that enhances visibility across security solutions and findings, helping prioritize the risks that matter to an organization and improving DevSecOps efficiency.

To address the challenges faced by overburdened security teams and the complexities introduced by AI growth, organizations must adopt a new approach to AppSec. Bringing together DevSecOps, best-of-breed security tools, and an independent governance model can help to modernize AppSec to withstand current and future threats.