Responding and remediating: Best practices for handling security alerts

As organizations continue to evolve their DevSecOps programs by adopting comprehensive testing and monitoring, the next step is to take action on the insights uncovered. This means remediating security issues as early as possible and responding to security alerts and incidents in a timely manner.

However, many security and development teams find that triaging the findings of every tool and managing remediation efforts is time-consuming and costly. Dealing with security alerts is also distracting, causing teams to be bogged down with too many false positives. That’s why organizations need an efficient way to handle remediation and response efforts as part of their DevSecOps strategies. 

Remediating security issues during testing

The first aspect of remediating security issues is getting in-depth visibility during testing. Automated scanning and testing throughout the software development lifecycle (SDLC) can uncover many potential issues that must be addressed. This requires a vulnerability remediation process for efficiently finding, prioritizing, and fixing potential security issues.

Track, understand, and fix potential vulnerabilities 

Detecting and tracking vulnerabilities is essential for application security, but understanding them can be challenging. The most effective security scanning tools will leverage a vulnerability database that provides detailed contextual information, and allows developers to search the results to understand the security threat better and determine the best course of action. 

For example, Snyk reduces context switching by offering a pull request experience that reduces friction and minimizes disruption. Instead of having to abandon their focus to address security issues, developers see issue details directly in the pull request with inline comments and fix recommendations. 

Prioritize security issues

Scanning tools often uncover many vulnerabilities, though many are unreachable or have a very low risk level. This noise can overwhelm software teams and prevent them from addressing high-risk and critical vulnerabilities. That’s why it’s crucial to prioritize issues based on severity, reachability, business risk, and other factors. 

For example, an effective automated code scanning tool should be able to classify vulnerabilities based on their impact to prioritize developer remediation tasks. This aligns security efforts with broader organizational objectives, reducing overall risk while also minimizing the impact on developer productivity.

Leverage actionable advice on transitive dependencies 

The hidden nature of transitive dependencies often creates a security-critical blind spot for developers. While direct dependencies are chosen deliberately, transitive dependencies are packages brought in automatically by one of those direct dependencies and can extend deep into a complex dependency tree. According to Snyk's State of Open Source Security report, 86% of Node.js vulnerabilities in open source software exist in these transitive dependencies.

That’s why a comprehensive software composition analysis (SCA) tool must go beyond surface-level inspection and thoroughly analyze every layer of the dependency tree. By identifying vulnerabilities hidden in transitive dependencies, an SCA tool ensures comprehensive visibility and protection, safeguarding against risks in parts of the codebase developers might not even realize they are using.

Responding to security alerts and incidents

Despite an organization’s best efforts to remediate issues early, security threats will still emerge once an application is in production or after it’s been deployed. This means a comprehensive DevSecOps strategy needs tools and processes for promptly responding to security alerts and incidents.

Continuously monitor applications

Scanning and testing applications before deployment is invaluable, but it’s also important to continuously monitor for security issues in production. Automated monitoring of projects and code for newly discovered zero-day vulnerabilities and real-time alerts can help identify threats immediately and keep applications secure. 

Define an incident response plan 

A rapid incident response plan is crucial for reacting to security events, minimizing their impact, and remediating any vulnerabilities to prevent a similar incident in the future. This plan should outline key steps for containing the security breach, restoring the affected systems, and conducting a review to determine the root cause and learn from the incident. 

By establishing a comprehensive incident response plan, organizations can respond to cyber threats in a predictable and rational way that enhances resilience. Similarly, a disaster recovery plan can protect against data loss or the destruction of IT infrastructure after an incident.

Take action with Snyk

Snyk is a developer-first security platform that automatically scans for vulnerabilities across the entire SDLC. The platform covers all aspects of modern applications, from the source code and open source dependencies to containers and infrastructure as code (IaC).

Snyk’s scanning tools leverage the Snyk Vulnerability Database, which enriches public data sources to provide valuable context about any security issues discovered. This database is maintained by Snyk’s security team to ensure accuracy and minimize false positives.

Snyk Open Source provides advanced software composition analysis (SCA) powered by industry-leading security and application intelligence. Additionally, Snyk Code enhances security by identifying vulnerabilities as it’s written — including AI-generated code — helping developers catch issues early in the development cycle. By providing real-time feedback and fix suggestions, it streamlines secure coding without slowing down innovation.

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. 

Ready to transform your DevSecOps strategy? Schedule a demo today to discover how Snyk can help you effectively deal with security threats and vulnerabilities.