Here’s a concise but deep rundown of DevSecOps best practices that cover the full lifecycle:

1. Culture & Process

  • Security as a shared responsibility → Dev, Ops, and Security teams work together from day 1.
  • Shift left → Address security early in the SDLC to avoid expensive fixes later.
  • Security champions → Appoint developers trained in security who act as points of contact.
  • Security awareness training → Regular workshops to make security part of daily thinking.

2. Code Security

  • SAST (Static Application Security Testing) → Scan code for vulnerabilities before merge (e.g., Semgrep, SonarQube, CodeQL).
  • Secret scanning → Automatically detect exposed credentials in commits (TruffleHog, Gitleaks).
  • Dependency scanning → Regularly check libraries for known CVEs (OWASP Dependency-Check, Snyk).
  • Secure coding standards → Use OWASP ASVS or CWE Top 25 as baseline guidelines.

3. Build & CI/CD Pipeline Security

  • Immutable builds → Same artifact from build to production, no post-build changes.
  • Pipeline isolation → Use ephemeral build agents, avoid shared runners without security controls.
  • Signing artifacts → Sign Docker images and binaries (cosign, sigstore).
  • Security gates → Fail builds if critical vulnerabilities are found.

4. Container & Infrastructure Security

  • Image scanning → Scan Docker images for CVEs before pushing to registry (Grype, Trivy).
  • Minimal base images → Use distroless or alpine to reduce attack surface.
  • CIS Benchmarks → Apply hardened configurations for OS, Docker, and Kubernetes.
  • IaC scanning → Scan Terraform/Helm/K8s manifests for misconfigurations (Checkov, KICS).

5. Kubernetes Security

  • Namespace isolation → Separate environments by namespace, apply RBAC strictly.
  • Pod Security Standards → Enforce non-root, read-only FS, no privilege escalation.
  • Network policies → Restrict pod-to-pod communication to only what’s needed.
  • Audit logging → Enable Kubernetes API audit logs and send them to SIEM.

6. Runtime Security

  • DAST (Dynamic Application Security Testing) → Test running apps for vulnerabilities (OWASP ZAP).
  • RASP/WAF → Add runtime app security tools or a web application firewall.
  • Process monitoring → Detect unusual processes inside containers (Falco).
  • Threat detection & XDR → Use tools like Wazuh, Security Onion for alerts.

7. Monitoring, Logging & Incident Response

  • Centralized logging → Send logs to Elasticsearch/OpenSearch with Kibana dashboards.
  • Alerting → Integrate security alerts into Slack/Teams.
  • Incident playbooks → Have predefined steps for breach response.
  • Post-incident review → Learn from failures, update controls.

8. Compliance & Governance

  • Security policies in code → Store all security rules in Git (Policy-as-Code).
  • Automated compliance checks → Regular scans for PCI-DSS, HIPAA, ISO, etc.
  • Versioned evidence → Keep records of security scans and remediations for audits.

✅ Golden rule: Automate everything you can, but make security visible so it’s part of the culture.