DevOps vs DevSecOps: How Adding Security Early Can Save Your Business

Published on

March 24, 2025

Read time:

5 min

There is no way around it: cybersecurity is failing to keep up with reality. Cloud computing, ever-present automation, and AI-driven threats have reshaped the attack surface, and most organisations are woefully unprepared. While DevOps has helped companies ship software faster, security remains an afterthought for many, leaving critical vulnerabilities unchecked.

Enter DevSecOps, the natural evolution of DevOps that integrates security from the start.

The Current State of Software Security

Most companies are not ready for a cyberattack. Despite growing awareness of cybersecurity risks, many businesses still lack proper security protocols, and their cybersecurity teams often don’t have the right training to fend off an attack.

In fact, 60% of security professionals believe their teams are undertrained and unprepared¹. And they seem to be right.

Data shows that if a cyberattack were to hit, 7 out of 10 companies would struggle to recove. And an attack will happen sooner or later. According to Gartner, nearly half of all businesses worldwide will fall victim to criminal hacking just this year³. In fact, every 14 seconds, a new organisation becomes the target of a ransomware attack, resulting in 4,000 infiltration attempts and 560,000 malware detections per day⁴.

But the problem isn’t just the volume of attacks. It’s the fact that most software isn’t built with security in mind.

Research shows that 75% of applications contain at least one security flaw from the very moment they launch⁵. Worse still, two-thirds of businesses continue relying on legacy mainframe applications, riddled with known vulnerabilities, for their critical operations⁶.

Many of these breaches could have been prevented if security had been integrated from day one. Instead, the industry has followed a long-standing pattern: build first, secure later, if at all.

This isn’t just a technical failure; it’s a cultural issue, deeply embedded in how software development has traditionally worked. To understand why we need DevSecOps today, we first need to look at how software used to be built.

How Software Was Built and Why It Had To Change

For decades, software development was slow, rigid, and fragmented. Before theintroduction of agile & DevOps, most organisations followed the waterfall model, a linear approach where development, testing, and deployment happened in separate stages, often with months or even years between them.

Developers wrote code, passed it to QA testers, and then handed it off to IT operations teams for deployment. If security was considered, it was only at the very end, often causing last-minute delays or ignored vulnerabilities.

This approach worked in industries like construction or manufacturing, where linear project management made sense. But in software development, it was a disaster. If a security flaw was found late in the process, fixing it often meant going back to square one. Delays were common. Costs skyrocketed. Innovation stalled.

By the early 2000s, companies like Amazon, Google, and Netflix faced a challenge: they needed to release software faster and more reliably. Traditional development methods couldn’t keep up.

The Birth of DevOps

DevOps, which stands for Development & Operations, emerged as the solution to the inefficiencies of the waterfall model. By breaking down silos between development, IT operations, and quality assurance, DevOps allowed companies to ship updates faster, automate testing, and improve stability.

Instead of waiting months for deployment, teams could now release updates several times a month or even a day. Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Deployment (CD) meant new code was automatically tested and deployed within hours instead of weeks.

The impact was massive. According to Google's State of DevOps Report^7, companies that adopted DevOps, deployed 973 times more frequently than traditional teams, recovered from failures 6,570 times faster, and experienced three times lower change failure rates.

DevOps revolutionised software development. But as companies automated their pipelines, they also accelerated security vulnerabilities. Security teams simply couldn’t keep up. That’s where DevSecOps comes in.

The Next Step: DevSecOps

While DevOps transformed software development, it didn’t fully solve the security problem. As companies automated their development pipelines, vulnerabilities were introduced faster than security teams could keep up.

DevSecOps builds on the DevOps model by adding a strong focus on security. Instead of leaving security checks to the end, DevSecOps makes them a core part of the process. From the moment code is written until it is released, every step includes security checks.

This approach, known as Shift Left Security, ensures that vulnerabilities are caught early, when they are cheaper, faster, and easier to fix.

The DevSecOps Process

In a traditional DevOps pipeline, code moves through the following stages:

Plan → Code → Build → Test → Release → Deploy.

DevSecOps enhances this pipeline by embedding security at every critical point. Security testing happens throughout development, not as an afterthought.

Automated security checks remove the need for lengthy security reviews, keeping development pipelines moving fast. Continuous vulnerability scanning, static code analysis, and penetration testing are built into CI/CD. Additionally, developers get immediate alerts when security flaws are found, allowing for instant fixes instead of last-minute delays.

DevOps vs. DevSecOps: Comparison

By the time an audit identifies a security flaw in a traditional DevOps model, the damage may already be done. DevSecOps avoids this entirely by continuously monitoring and mitigating risks, ensuring that security is never an afterthought.

Instead of reacting to threats after they occur, DevSecOps transforms security into a proactive strategy, making it possible to prevent risks before they escalate.

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One of the biggest misconceptions about DevSecOps is that integrating security slows down software development. In reality, it does the opposite. By automating security testing and embedding it directly into DevOps workflows, DevSecOps eliminates the delays caused by last-minute security fixes, accelerates compliance with regulations like ISO 27001, PCI DSS, and GDPR, and prevents costly rework, saving companies an average of $3.86 million per breach⁸.

For industries like defence, finance, and healthcare, where the cost of a security failure can be catastrophic, DevSecOps is not just a safeguard but a necessity. A single breach can lead to massive financial losses, regulatory penalties, and lasting reputational damage. The stakes are simply too high to treat security as an afterthought.

But for organisations handling highly sensitive data, even DevSecOps isn't enough. The next step is adopting a Zero Trust security model.

Zero Trust Framework

Traditional security models assume that users inside the network can be trusted. Zero Trust assumes no one can be trusted by default. Every user, device, and application must continuously verify their identity and justify their access.

By combining DevSecOps with Zero Trust, companies can:

Minimise insider threats by enforcing strict access controls.
Ensure compliance with global cybersecurity standards (ISO 27001, PCI DSS, GDPR).
Reduce the blast radius of an attack by preventing lateral movement across systems.

Conclusion

Cyberattacks are inevitable. But security failures don’t have to be.

DevSecOps is a fundamental shift in how software is built and protected, ensuring that security is no longer an afterthought but a core part of development.

When security is embedded from the start, companies save time, money, and reputation. Fixing a vulnerability early in development costs a fraction of what it would post-release, and proactive security prevents the devastating financial and operational consequences of a breach.

For businesses in high-risk industries, implementing DevSecOps is the smartest way to proactively secure their future. By integrating security at every stage of development and adopting Zero Trust frameworks, organisations can build resilient, future-proof systems without sacrificing speed or innovation.

If you need support implementing DevSecOps, we stand ready to assist. Our team operates under military-grade security standards, ensuring that your software development remains secure, resilient, and future-proof. We help organisations modernize legacy systems, address technical debt, integrate advanced architectures, and develop tailored solutions that meet the highest security and operational requirements.

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