As organizations race to deliver digital experiences faster and more frequently, DevOps has become the gold standard for software delivery. But speed alone isn’t enough—especially as security threats grow more sophisticated and regulators tighten compliance demands. Enter DevSecOps: a natural evolution of DevOps that shifts security left and embeds it throughout the software delivery lifecycle.

DevSecOps isn’t just a trendy term anymore, it’s essential. With faster release cycles, open-source dependencies, and AI-generated code, security needs to move as fast as development.  

Emerging technology adoption, from containers and APIs to serverless and GenAI, is reshaping how teams build software. Yet adopting DevSecOps isn’t as simple as adding a security tool or two. It’s a cultural and technical transformation. 

DevSecOps best practices 

Here are seven DevSecOps best practices that can help your organization strengthen its security posture while maintaining the agility of DevOps. 

1. Shift left: Integrate security early in the SDLC 

DevSecOps isn’t about making developers security experts—it’s about equipping them with the right guardrails and feedback loops early in the process. "Shift Left" refers to integrating security practices earlier in the development lifecycle, ideally during the design and coding phases. By addressing security concerns upfront, teams can identify potential vulnerabilities before they even make it into the codebase. 

• Threat modeling: Engage in threat modeling during the design phase to identify security risks and potential attack vectors early. 

• Static Application Security Testing (SAST): Use SAST tools to analyze source code for security vulnerabilities as developers write it. 

• Dependency scanning: Regularly scan open-source libraries and dependencies for known vulnerabilities. 

• Triage findings: Use automated tools and contextual analysis to triage findings based on exploitability, severity, and business impact. For example: OpenText ASPM supports risk-based prioritization by combining threat intelligence, exploitability data, and business metadata to help teams focus on what matters most. 

But don’t stop at “left.” Security should also be part of runtime operations—monitoring, alerting, and post-deployment risk assessments are just as critical. Check out our OpenText™ Cybersecurity solutions enable faster, safer, and more reliable software delivery. 

2. Automate Security Testing in CI/CD Pipelines 

Manual security checks don’t scale. Automation does. To keep things moving fast and consistently, security tests need to be automated right into the CI/CD pipeline. When you bake security into the development workflow, teams can catch and fix issues as they go — without slowing things down. 

• Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST): Automate runtime security scans to identify vulnerabilities that may arise during runtime, especially in web applications. 

• Interactive Application Security Testing (IAST): Use IAST tools during testing to find vulnerabilities in real-time by monitoring app behavior during functional tests. 

• Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Security: Analyze infrastructure code for misconfigurations and potential security flaws before deployment. 

• Container scanning: Ensure containers don’t contain outdated packages or known CVEs. 

• Secrets detection: Identify and quarantine API keys or credentials checked into code. 

Integrating security steps into your CI/CD pipeline ensures security happens by default, not as an afterthought. 

3. Continuous monitoring, logging, and improvement 

Monitoring, observability, and logging are your early warning system when it comes to security. With the right setup, teams can spot anything unusual — like a potential breach — as it happens. Catching issues early means you can respond faster and keep the impact to a minimum. 

• Centralized logging: Implement centralized logging solutions like ELK (Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana) or Splunk to aggregate logs from various systems. 

• Security Information and Event Management (SIEM): Use SIEM platforms to correlate and analyze security events across your infrastructure and applications, providing actionable insights. 

• Real-time threat intelligence: Leverage intrusion detection systems (IDS) and intrusion prevention systems (IPS) to identify potential threats and attack patterns. 

Threats evolve—so should your DevSecOps practices. DevSecOps isn’t a one-time effort—it’s a continuous commitment.  

4. Automate compliance and policy enforcement 

Compliance requirements are an inevitable part of modern software development. The good news is you can automate a lot of it. By establishing governance frameworks and track key metrics with real-time dashboards, building in automated checks and enforcing policies as you go, you make it easier to stay on track — and avoid the headaches (and fines) that come with falling out of compliance. 

• Automated compliance audits: Implement tools to automatically enforce security and compliance policies during the CI/CD pipeline. 

• Continuous configuration compliance: Regularly assess system configurations against industry standards (e.g., CIS Benchmarks, NIST) to ensure that the environment remains secure over time. 

• Version control for policies: Keep security and compliance policies under version control to ensure changes can be tracked and reviewed in an auditable manner. 

• Use policy-as-code to enforce governance: Governance can’t rely on manual checklists in a high-velocity delivery environment. With policy-as-code, you can codify your organization’s rules (e.g., no open S3 buckets, no use of deprecated APIs) and enforce them automatically across development and deployment stages. 

Tools like OpenText™ Core Application Security (Fortify) can be integrated to make policy enforcement auditable and scalable. OpenText ASPM supports enterprise-wide AppSec posture management by integrating scan results, policy compliance, and developer engagement data into a single view. 

5. Minimize risk with AI 

Human error is often the weakest link in security. AI is transforming the way organizations manage security — not by replacing people, but by amplifying their ability to detect, respond to, and prevent threats across the DevSecOps pipeline. 

• Secure coding practices: Provide ongoing training on secure coding techniques, such as proper input validation, authentication, and authorization mechanisms. 

• Embrace AI: AI-powered DevOps tools can analyze code, configurations, and runtime behavior to flag anomalies and potential vulnerabilities much faster than manual review ever could. This means threats are caught early — often before they reach production. AI systems improve over time, learning from historical data and real-world incidents to fine-tune detection and recommendation engines. 

• Proactive risk insights: Security alerts can be overwhelming. AI helps cut through the noise by automatically triaging findings, reducing false positives, and highlighting the risks that actually matter. By learning from past vulnerabilities and attack patterns, AI can offer predictive insights — helping teams identify and address risks before they become active threats. OpenText Application Security Aviator is a great example of this. 

6. Collaborate and communicate across teams 

DevSecOps is not just a set of tools; it’s a cultural shift. Successful DevSecOps adoption requires a collaborative mindset, where development, security, and operations teams work closely together to identify and address security risks. 

• Cross-functional collaboration: Foster communication and collaboration between development, security, and operations teams to ensure that security concerns are raised and addressed throughout the lifecycle. 

• Security champions: Designate security champions within development teams who can act as liaisons between security experts and developers, helping to identify and address security concerns early. 

• Feedback loops: Establish continuous feedback loops so that security issues are discussed and addressed in real-time, preventing bottlenecks or delayed responses. 

Platform engineering and solutions like OpenText™ Core Software Delivery Platform eliminate silos and give your team the tools they need to strike the perfect balance between quality, speed and value.  

7. Implement secure software supply chain management 

These days, most teams rely on third-party libraries and components to build software faster — but that also means opening the door to potential risks. That’s why securing your entire software supply chain is so important. Your DevSecOps solutions needs to cover everything from what you bring in to how you build and deploy, making sure nothing risky or malicious sneaks into your pipeline. 

• Verify third-party code: Regularly verify the integrity of third-party code by scanning dependencies and using trusted sources. 

• Use Software Composition Analysis (SCA): SCA tools can help identify known vulnerabilities in third-party libraries, ensuring that they are updated and patched as necessary. For example: OpenText Core SCA (formerly Debricked) and Open Source Select help teams manage open-source risk and support secure component selection. 

• Monitor supply chain for threats: Continuously monitor the software supply chain, for emerging threats and vulnerabilities that could impact your organization.  

DevSecOps best practices to business impact 

DevSecOps is about balancing speed and safety. The best practices above aren’t just technical—they’re strategic. By making security an integral part of DevOps workflows, you’re ensuring that your applications are secure by design, from development to production.  

Security can’t be bolted on—it must be built in. With the right mindset, automation, and collaboration, DevSecOps isn’t just achievable—it’s a competitive advantage. 

Security doesn’t have to slow you down. With the right tools and processes, it becomes part of how you build. OpenText gives teams the visibility and automation they need to move fast and stay secure. 

By putting these best practices into place, your team can ship software that’s not only high quality, but secure from the start. 

Check out how OpenText delivers DevSecOps solutions with an intelligent end-to-end development-, security-, and operations-driven solutions so you can accelerate innovation and reducing risk. 

Additional DevSecOps resources to explore

• Blog: Pitfalls of not implementing modern DevSecOps for secure software development and delivery 

• Guide: Secure by design: Deliver faster, safer and more secure software with DevSecOps 

• Webinar: Build better apps faster with OpenText DevOps Aviator | OpenText Community 

• Video: What is DevSecOps 

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