Five DevSecOps Practices to
Harden Software Supply Chains
A software application is only as stable as its foundation. In today's interconnected digital landscape, that foundation is increasingly built on a complex web of dependencies, third-party libraries, and open source components. A single weak link in this intricate network can threaten an organization’s entire software supply chain.
This is where DevSecOps comes in — weaving security into the very DNA of the software development lifecycle (SDLC). By integrating security practices into DevOps workflows, organizations can build a culture of shared responsibility, catch vulnerabilities early, and ultimately, strengthen every link in their software supply chain.
Let's look at five key practices you can start using now to make your software more resistant to attacks.
5 DevSecOps Practices
1
Think Holistically about Security
The first step is to adopt a holistic mindset. Rather than integrate security as an afterthought or a siloed concern, DevSecOps takes a comprehensive approach that considers security at every stage of the SDLC. This includes involving security teams from the very beginning — when requirements are being defined and architectures are being designed. By baking security into the planning process, potential weaknesses can be identified and mitigated before a single line of code is written.
But holistic thinking extends beyond just the early stages. It requires continuously assessing and addressing security throughout development, testing, deployment, and operations. Every stakeholder — from developers to teams in legal, compliance, finance and others — must be empowered with tools, knowledge, and responsibility to prioritize security in their day-to-day work.
How Kusari helps –
- Provides a full view of your software supply chain, ingesting a list of all software components (known as a software bill of materials or SBOM), highlighting dependencies, vulnerabilities, open source licenses, and compliance risks across the SDLC.
- A unified dashboard displays the number of vulnerabilities and other issues afflicting your software development lifecycle, ranking and prioritizing them so you have context to make decisions and establish a remediation plan.
2
Know Your Dependencies
In modern software development, it's rare to build everything from scratch. Most applications rely heavily on open source components and third-party libraries. While these dependencies can greatly accelerate development, they also introduce significant risk.
Many organizations rely on Software Composition Analysis (SCA) tools to scan and identify components, check them for vulnerabilities, and produce SBOMs. This approach can be enhanced to support an ever-accelerating pace of software development. By starting with SBOMs at the moment new code is introduced, you can know the components and correlate them with other data sources. This provides ongoing visibility into your dependencies so your organization can proactively manage risk.
How Kusari helps –
- Stores and manages infinite amounts of SBOM data, plus builds a timeline view of what's happening with each software component for greater security and compliance.
- Continuously update, track, and correlate data from other services, including SCA tools, to augment missing information.
3
Continuously Monitor to Detect Threats
Securing your software supply chain requires constant vigilance. As the threat landscape evolves, so must your defenses. Continuous monitoring is crucial for staying ahead and preventing attacks. By instrumenting your applications and infrastructure with logging and telemetry, you can gain real-time visibility into potential security events.
However, with the sheer volume of data generated in modern environments, manual analysis is impractical. This is where machine learning and behavioral analytics can help. By baselining normal behavior and identifying anomalies, these tools can surface potential threats amidst the noise.
How Kusari helps –
- With continuous monitoring and correlation of data from multiple sources, you can detect sophisticated threats that might otherwise slip through the cracks.
- Delivers a comprehensive perspective of your software supply chain, spotlighting transitive and intransitive dependencies, exposing potential and real vulnerabilities, and surfacing open source licensing and compliance issues throughout the entire software development lifecycle.
- Alerts you when new risks emerge so you can rapidly determine impact and take corrective action. With Kusari connected into your CI/CD pipeline, you can enforce policies to block the use of risky components before they ever reach production.
4
Automate Fixes
Identifying vulnerabilities is only half the battle. To truly secure your software supply chain, you need to be able to swiftly and reliably remediate issues. This is where automation becomes critical. By codifying security policies and remediation steps, you can ensure consistent, auditable fixes are applied across your environment.
Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools like Terraform and CloudFormation allow you to define your infrastructure and security controls in version-controlled templates. By integrating security testing into your IaC pipeline, you can catch misconfigurations and policy violations before they hit production.
How Kusari helps –
- Scales to ingest and store large amounts of SBOMs and other software metadata efficiently, with the ability to ingest years' worth of information in a matter of minutes.
- Streamlines remediation by automatically generating fixes based on your organization's specific policies and approval processes.
5
Comply with Mandates and Best Practices
As the importance of software supply chain security gains prominence, so too does the regulatory landscape. Governments and industry bodies are introducing new mandates and best practices to raise the bar for software security.
In the US, Executive Order 14028 on improving the nation's cybersecurity requires federal agencies and their software suppliers to attest to following secure development practices. The order also mandates the use of SBOMs to provide transparency into software components. Include the FDA Mandate Similarly, the European Union's forthcoming Cyber Resilience Act will impose strict requirements around vulnerability disclosure and management for software products.
Frameworks such as the NIST Secure Software Development Framework (SSDF), SLSA (Supply-chain Levels for Software Artifacts), and Cloud Native Computing Foundation Technical Advisory Group (CNCF TAG) best practices offer guidance on integrating security throughout the SDLC. SLSA provides a comprehensive checklist of standards and controls, while CNCF TAG focuses on layered defensive practices and key principles like trust, automation, clarity, and mutual authentication.
How Kusari helps –
- Ensures that mandates and compliance are met before applications are running in production.
- Considers best practices and regulatory requirements at each stage of the development cycle.
Reduce Risk, Accelerate Innovation
Software drives modern business. To truly protect it, you need a holistic approach: from managing dependencies and continuous monitoring to automated remediation and strict compliance with best practices. These are all essential elements in safeguarding software.
By securing your supply chain, you’re not just reducing risk—you’re also accelerating innovation. Integrating security tools and practices in a way that provides stakeholders full context without aggravating developers is the goal. This empowers teams to prioritize security and make smarter decisions based on a single source of truth. Embrace DevSecOps and start building resilient, trustworthy software.
It’s Time to Take Control
Kusari is ready to help you transform your approach to software security, delivering the automation, visibility, and intelligence needed to secure software at scale.
Learn more about us and the Kusari Platform. The future of your software security starts now.
About Kusari
Kusari was founded by three cybersecurity experts on a mission to bring transparency and security to the software supply chain.
Backed by J2 Ventures, Glasswing Ventures, and Unusual Ventures, Kusari helps organizations identify and quickly remediate vulnerabilities while powering secure development practices.
An advocate of open source, Kusari is a creator and maintainer of the OpenSSF’s GUAC project, and our team holds positions of influence in the open source software (OSS) community.
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