I have always been intrigued by how security marries automation in infrastructure. Defining and managing security policies as code in what is now known as “security policy as code” means a revolution in how organizations approach security in this cloud-native age.
I’ve just completed my research into the security policy-as-code landscape, so let me share some thoughts and findings that may be of interest to technology leadership and decision-makers.
The Growing Importance of Security Policy as Code
The burgeoning importance of software as a service has transformed the very character of information technology, creating new sources of attack and greatly magnifying the risk associated with breaches. Conventional, manually implemented security approaches were ill-prepared to deal with the speed and sheer volume associated with development cycles.
What security policy as code offers is a more proactive, automated, and scalable approach that will help enable organizations to:
- Mitigate risk: Security policy as code automatically infuses security checks deep into the development process, which helps identify and mitigate vulnerabilities before reaching production, thus reducing possible costly breaches.
- Ensure compliance: Automating policy enforcement and continuous monitoring eases compliance audits for an organization and helps meet industry regulations and internal security standards.
- Drive faster development: Including security in an already existing DevOps pipeline removes bottlenecks, resulting in fast and secure software delivery.
Notable Lessons Learned from the Field
It has been an interesting year researching the security policy-as-code market. One of the most striking takeaways is the undeniable convergence of security and development. And organizations are recognizing, more and more, that in the current era of fast-paced and agile development, security cannot be treated as an afterthought. Security policy as code is the integration of tools and frameworks to help achieve this; however, as with all things, there are going to be challenges in this transition. That’s by far the biggest barrier: it’s a learning curve for organizations and their staffs on newer tools, languages (such as Rego), and the cultural mindset that DevSecOps requires. It doesn’t just change what software they use; it changes how teams will work together, communicate, and prioritize security across the entire lifecycle.
Surprises and Shifting Sands
The speed of innovation in security policy as code has been tremendous. In a single year, new features and capabilities have evolved, from sophisticated policy authoring tools complete with visual editors and intelligent code completion to AI-powered change monitoring and automated remediation. Vendors are not simply keeping up with the threat landscape; they are actively shaping it. Comparing this year’s GigaOm Radar against last year’s GigaOm Radar shows a maturing market across a much wider scope of solutions. We see this very clearly with some new entrants to the space that bring a new approach. We also see long-established players upping their game in terms of what they bring to the table. The other shift that is being observed in the market is a move toward comprehensive platform plays in relation to a target deployment to manage policies across its whole stack, from infrastructure provisioning down to application deployment and runtime security.
Navigating the Security Policy-as-Code Landscape: A Roadmap for Technology Leaders
Before diving into the security policy-as-code market, prospective customers should complete the following steps as they start on their journey:
- Assess your needs: Start by first making a full-fledged inventory of your organization’s security and compliance needs. Consider the size and complexity of your infrastructure, your existing technology stack, your DevOps maturity, and any industry-specific regulations you must follow.
- Make it holistic: Security policy as code is more than just a set of tools; it’s about creating a security-conscious culture within your organization. Interdisciplinary collaboration and co-ownership of security by development and operations teams allow the human part to bring more value into the process.
- Consider Feature Play vs. Platform Play Solutions: Point solutions offer great depth of functionality for certain capabilities and use cases. Platform Plays offer greater breadth of functionality across many capabilities and use cases. Organizations should evaluate whether there is value in maintaining a solution that looks after the policies across all of their infrastructures—basically, changing them as and when the needs evolve.
- Prioritize automation and integration with your current DevOps toolchain: A solution will be easy to work with if it fits in your DevOps toolchain and has robust automation capability. You will be able to enact policies with a high level of flexibility, avoid manual errors as much as possible, and get continuous validation of compliance.
- Invest in training and education: This ensures that your teams are equipped with proper knowledge and skills in implementing and managing security policy as code effectively. This ranges from principles of policy as code and grasping new tools and languages to being updated on the best practices and latest trends in security.
The Security Policy-as-Code Market is Poised for Continued Growth and Innovation
We predict the following will become more influential in this space in the near future. These trends empower organizations with insights and proactive methods on how to pre-prepare to handle a security and compliance management dynamic digital environment.
- AI-powered policy optimization: Harness the power of AI and ML to consume massive data on security, recognize patterns, and provide proactive recommendations for optimizing policies.
- Automated remediation: Take it one step further with security policy-as-code solutions to offer automated remediation for policy violations and security risks at runtime.
- Broader platform support: Enhanced support for diverse infrastructure environments—be it multicloud, hybrid cloud, or including on-premises deployments.
- Improved usability and collaboration: Intuitive interfaces, visual policy builders, and collaborative features make security policy as code available to a wider group of users.
Next Steps
To learn more, take a look at GigaOm’s security policy-as-code Key Criteria and Radar reports. These reports provide a comprehensive view of the market, outline the criteria you’ll want to consider in a purchase decision, and evaluate how a number of vendors perform against those decision criteria.
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