Governance in DevSecOps: Measuring and Improving Security Outcomes

After implementing a DevSecOps strategy from the ground up — including secure design, testing and monitoring, and risk-based remediation — you will need to focus on analysis and governance. After all, organizations need to regularly measure and refine their security processes to mature their DevSecOps programs. 

Governance of DevSecOps and application security programs supports the creation and management of policies and, through effective measurement, allows security leaders to benchmark their current state, set a strategy for the future, and measure continuous improvements over time. By combining governance and risk management, application security teams can focus on prioritizing both applications and issues and ultimately help their organizations achieve their desired security and risk posture.

We’ll discuss the importance of measurement as an aspect of governance in DevSecOps, highlighting why it’s crucial to continuously measure and improve security processes to reduce risk and accelerate development.

How to measure key security outcomes 

Tracking metrics and results from DevSecOps processes can give security leaders a quantifiable measure of risk and a better understanding of the impact a DevSecOps approach has had in lowering risk over time. Importantly, clear goals and measurable indicators of progress are also crucial to fostering an environment where security responsibility is collectively shared by development, security, and operations teams.

Ultimately, the ideal KPIs for a DevSecOps program are specific to individual organizations, but some of the most common security-centric KPIs include:

• Open issues backlog: The total number of open issues provides insight into current AppSec risk that requires attention.  

• Issue aging: Tracking the exposure window of open issues is key to identifying issues with a potentially higher likelihood of exploitation.

• Mean Time To Resolve (MTTR):  understanding the efficiency of remediation processes.

• Service Level Agreement (SLA): Working cross-functionally to establish Service Level Objectives and then translating them into SLAs helps verify that issue remediation meets your compliance requirements.

• IDE and CLI test rates: The rate at which these tests are conducted helps measure the developer's adoption of AppSec testing in the development stage.

• CI/CD Pipelines test rates: Measure the adoption of AppSec testing in CI/CD pipelines.

However, measuring both risk and risk reduction is challenging because it requires correlating data from multiple sources for every asset. A unified security governance framework — combined with an application security posture management (ASPM) platform to consolidate security data from various tools — can help organizations proactively manage overall risk. 

An effective governance framework should include comprehensive audit logs and reporting optimized for accuracy, actionability, and urgency. The data collected from security processes should also be based on useful and relevant metrics. For example, security metrics like common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) severity and common weakness enumeration (CWE) categories lack the context to make risk-aware decisions. This creates misalignment with developers and unclear approximations of impact on business leaders. 

Creating a clear and comprehensive risk model and governance framework for all software assets is essential to maintaining security. These frameworks should outline specific remediation goals based on incident severity, providing a structured approach to risk management. By tracking progress against these goals, security leaders can ensure their teams are addressing vulnerabilities effectively and making continuous improvements.

Aligning security process with organizational goals

After capturing data from DevSecOps processes, organizations should analyze this information to identify potential weaknesses or bottlenecks and set a strategy for the future. This can reduce risk, improve operations, and enable new security capabilities. For example, feeding data from threat intelligence tools into DevSecOps pipelines allows organizations to better understand their current threat landscape and determine indicators of compromise. These insights can be used to build an actionable defense strategy going forward.

An effective governance framework should also include application security policies that adhere to internally accepted security and compliance standards. Security process data related to threat history, vulnerabilities, remediation efforts, and more can be used to establish relevant policies. These policies can then be automatically and consistently enforced to enhance the organization’s overall security posture.

It’s also crucial to measure and review the number and frequency of releases that are blocked due to security issues. When these metrics are higher, this can indicate issues related to security culture, policies, or developer responsibilities. Organizations can work to reduce the friction with DevSecOps adoption by identifying these weak points.

Using data to continuously improve security processes

Cyber threats are constantly evolving, so it’s important for organizations to continuously improve their security processes to stay ahead of malicious actors. By implementing continuous security testing, improving existing processes, and eliminating time wasted by developers, organizations can enhance their DevSecOps strategies in the face of new threats and shifting company priorities.

Measuring improvements over time can encourage development and security teams and lead to further investments in application security by business leaders. By measuring the impact security initiatives are having on the business, security will be viewed as a business enabler rather than a barrier to innovation. This can reinforce the value of DevSecOps adoption and increase buy-in for future cybersecurity initiatives.

DevSecOps governance with Snyk

Snyk is a developer-first security platform that enables a risk-based approach to DevSecOps. Our comprehensive platform secures all aspects of modern applications, including code, open source dependencies, containers, and cloud infrastructure. Snyk also integrates across the entire software development lifecycle (SDLC), collecting granular security data to provide in-depth visibility into risk. 

Snyk Analytics provides clear and actionable insights into your AppSec program performance through purpose-built dashboards highlighting the metrics that are most important to you. This allows you to easily view your current security posture and take action accordingly.

• Issue Analytics helps you focus on critical vulnerabilities and provides your teams with insights to ensure the most pressing issues are addressed.

• Application Analytics tracks risk and coverage, allowing you to spot risk trends.

• Developer Analytics monitors tool adoption across your teams as well as IDE plugin and CLI adoption.

Easily customize and integrate your data through CSV exports, Snyk platform APIs, and Snowflake data sharing. This flexibility helps you improve your security strategy and demonstrate progress, building trust with your team and stakeholders.

Looking for more practical advice on how to measure and improve security outcomes in your organization? Download 5 Critical Capabilities for Progressing Your DevSecOps Program. 

Schedule a demo to find out more about Snyk’s developer-first DevSecOps tools.