Empower Your Developers with Software Supply Chain Security

Gartner names OX Security as representative vendor in Emerging Tech Impact Radar: DevOps report

The historical friction between software developers and cybersecurity teams is a thing of legend. Developers are traditionally focused on building new applications and updating production applications with cutting-edge features and functionality while ensuring they’re meeting tight deadlines. Security teams, on the other hand, are keen to identify and fix vulnerabilities — regardless of where the app is in its lifecycle.

These two goals are somewhat contradictory: It’s hard to examine every tiny component of the codebase while the training rolls down the tracks at 100 MPH.

DevSecOps to the rescue…

Over the years, developer-security friction issues have created turf wars that have slowed down development processes and frustrated both sides, plus higher-ranking business leaders, customers, and other stakeholders. Out of this conundrum arose the concept of DevSecOps, in which security teams attempted to embed themselves into the development process — sitting alongside developers, learning their workflows, and educating them about security best practices. In theory, this collaboration changed the game. Only, it didn’t. Developers saw this as an attempt by security staff to dictate development processes and resented the interjection.

Meanwhile, developers were actually keen on security; they smartly acknowledged that poor code quality, buggy code, software vulnerabilities, flimsy underlying architecture, and more could all threaten the optimal functioning of their applications. Even a decade ago, developers understood that security checks and balances had to be part of their everyday life. Today, more than ever before, no developer worth their salt would forgo security checks and balances throughout the duration of their software’s lifecycle.

How modern tools and practices are integrating security seamlessly into development

Today, software supply chain security and application security — both as concepts and tools — are flourishing. The industry has come a long way in a short while to improve the quality of tools, the efficacy of tools, and how they integrate with developer workflows. Newer technologies and concepts help developers build security into their processes, allowing them to avoid significant disruption, reduce the number of potential vulnerabilities in their codebase, and continue to produce a good end product. These advancements have helped security seep even deeper into the development realm

Still, security teams continue to be the biggest consumers of software supply chain security (SSCS), application security posture management (ASPM), and application security testing (AST) tools. Of course this is the most logical result. Though developers are concerned about software/application security, their main focus is on the software/application itself. And in many cases, security tools (and processes) have been positioned as obstacles to rapid development.

Leading SSCS, ASPM, and AST tools are now robust and efficient enough to eliminate the dreaded lag of yesteryear’s vulnerability scanning and code testing technologies. Various tools can be used throughout the SDLC to ensure that software issues are surfaced quickly, pinpointed accurately, and include sufficient tracking/auditing mechanisms to ensure proper triage or remediation. Spreading out testing not only removes the fear that development will grind to a halt at any one juncture in the process, but also safeguards against vulnerabilities that can arise at different junctures in software’s life cycle. After all — finding and fixing vulnerabilities, as they’re generated, is a lot less time-consuming and frustrating than pushing a bad piece of software into production, only to find out there’s an active exploit against the library that underpins its functionality…and you’ve got hundreds of thousands of users with that app running right now…

Gartner on DevOps

A new Emerging Tech Impact Radar: DevOps report by Gartner focuses on the need for emerging tech to deliver valuable business outcomes and contribute to customer satisfaction. Dev teams have been cheerleaders of this sentiment from the very beginning. Today, however, with rising rates of cyber attacks against software and the software supply chain, these teams also know that security can’t be an afterthought.

Gartner’s report acknowledges that and advises firms to “Bring the development, testing, data, operations and security teams together,” and “Support continuous-improvement practices by carefully selecting technologies that augment process change to increase user agility and reduce adoption friction.”

Specifically as it relates to software supply chain security, Gartner mentions OX as a representative vendor in the space and says that SSCS is ripe for mass adoption given that “Software supply chain attacks impact nearly every industry, and market demand will be driven by events and regulatory compliance mandates.”

What’s more, Gartner analysts recommend that development teams “Address the challenges caused by SSCS’s fragmented and siloed capabilities by integrating capabilities such as SCA, SBOMs, container image scanning, and monitoring of the development operating environment on a platform.”

In the report Gartner highlights a handful of representative vendors, including OX Security for the features and functionality to achieve unified visibility and control of software environments. Built on an AppSec data fabric, OX delivers more than aggregated data from siloed tools. Read on to learn why.

OX and DevOps integration

OX Security is a recognized top performer in software supply chain security through our Active ASPM Platform. Purpose-built to streamline and unify formerly disparate and noisy AppSec processes and tooling, the OX Platform combines all the necessary testing and vulnerability management functions into one, holistic solution that is easy to use for both security and developer teams. Built on an AppSec data fabric, OX empowers developers to take greater control over software security analysis, using automation to ensure minimal disruption to regular coding practices, and offering clear guidance for any necessary remediation.

OX empowers developers in several key ways:

• Streamlined Security Throughout Development:

  OX Security integrates seamlessly with developer workflows, providing automated security testing throughout the SDLC. This frees developers from manual security tasks and allows them to focus on writing features and fixing bugs.

• Clear and Actionable Security Insights:

  OX prioritizes vulnerabilities based on severity, exploitability, reachability, and business impact. This provides developers with a clear understanding of which issues are most critical and need to be addressed first. Additionally, OX offers automated fixes and recommendations, empowering developers to take action without needing extensive security expertise.

• Real-time Visibility into the Software Supply Chain:

  OX goes beyond traditional ASPM by offering Pipeline Bills of Materials (PBOMs) which include a comprehensive view of all components used in the software, including open-source libraries, cloud services, and custom code. This transparency empowers developers to identify potential vulnerabilities in dependencies and take steps to mitigate risks.

• Unified Visibility and Management with a Data Fabric:

  Unlike other SSCS tools, OX does not simply pull together data from disparate tools. The OX data fabric approach combines proprietary, lightweight scanning technologies that go deeper and wider than traditional commercial tools. A processing engine based on primary research then enriches data with context and applicability. All of this rich data is then complemented with insights from integrated tools, ensuring that customers have the best of both worlds in one, consolidated management plane.

• Reduced Rework and Faster Development:

  By automating security testing, prioritizing vulnerabilities, and offering automated fixes, the OX Platform helps developers work more efficiently and reduces rework caused by security issues found later in the development process. This leads to faster development cycles and quicker time to market.

• Empowerment Through Self-Service Security:

  OX provides developers with easy-to-use security tools and clear documentation. This allows developers to take ownership of security and fix vulnerabilities themselves, without relying heavily on the security team for everything. This fosters a sense of self-sufficiency and increases developer productivity.

• Improved Collaboration with Security Teams:

  By equipping developers with the knowledge and tools to address security concerns proactively, OX helps bridge the gap between development and security teams. This can lead to a more collaborative and productive working environment where both teams are working towards the same goal of secure software development.

We at OX Security love our security customers. But AppSec teams can’t do it alone. Our engineering team is comprised of developers — so they know how developers work, what they like, what they don’t, and so on. It’s not lost on them that building a platform for security professionals to double-check development’s work is a fine line. But instead of tiptoeing around a sensitive subject, the goal has always been to empower developers with a comprehensive solution that integrates seamlessly with their workflows, offers clear security insights, and fosters a culture of self-sufficiency.

Take OX for a test drive to see the results for yourself. If you don’t like us, feel free to keep using siloed tools with conflicting datasets. But we bet you will find vast improvement in your SSCS program and free up more of your time for writing even better apps.