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Data & AI
Applying a DevSecOps framework is critical in financial software development. It fits the needs of a rapidly changing product and a highly regulated environment. That strategic approach is even more important now as more users adopt fintech. The shift to digital channels accelerated after the pandemic, impacting brand-dependent customers.
In making these solutions more user-friendly, banking institutions also must balance security. Without a solid security strategy, financial software development will face obstacles in ensuring compliance and delivering on user expectations.
In this post, we’ll discuss the rising use of fintech, why financial organizations must be security-centric, and how DevSecOps supports the financial software development lifecycle.
Fintech Adoption Is Soaring
It’s no surprise that user adoption of fintech grew considerably in the last year. Illustrating this rise are these statistics:
- Prepandemic, 52 percent of customers were branch-dependent. With less access to the brand, those users had to change their financial activities and shift to digital channels.
- During the pandemic, fintech app sessions grew 49 percent, and 44 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds enrolled in mobile banking for the first time.
- Seniors, the most branch-dependent demographic, also went online, with 77 percent using a digital channel for financial transactions or bill pay.
Financial institutions have more users than ever. They certainly want to ensure that their software is easy to use and simple, but they shouldn’t compromise security. A bank’s reputation and user comfort with these apps would be underscored if they weren’t secure by design. That’s why DevSecOps is such a great fit for the industry, ushering in continuous deployment, integration, and security.
Why Financial Institutes Must Be Security-Centric
Financial organizations are a prime target for cybercriminals. They routinely top the industry lists for most cybersecurity threats. It’s a lucrative proposition for them, and these threat actors aren’t slowing down during the pandemic. In fact, attacks on financial organizations went up 238 percent from February to the end of April 2020.
Further, banks must also comply with a variety of regulations about private and sensitive data. Thus, they are under pressure from all stakeholders. The need to be security-centric is a crucial shift. How they do it doesn’t have to be complex. DevSecOps supports this new mindset for development.
DevSecOps merges development, operations, and security. It adds to the original DevOps culture and principles, focusing on involving security considerations from the start. Security isn’t an afterthought in DevSecOps; it’s a tenet. The process integrates security and compliance objectives into the software development lifecycle.
How DevSecOps Supports Financial Software Development
The development lifecycle in financial software is never-ending. It’s never complete. There are always new features, configurations, and improvements. The struggle with traditional software development practices is that all the essential players—development, operations, and security—live in silos. DevSecOps eliminates these.
Instead, it’s an environment of shared responsibility, communication, and collaboration to deliver on all goals. With that foundation, a DevSecOps team provides significant support for the software development lifecycle.
Analyzing, assessing, and remediating granular code
Code is susceptible to errors that can cause security and usability issues. The DevSecOps framework looks at code in components, identifying vulnerabilities and isolating those quickly.
The ability to manage telemetry in real time also offers context for developers to make precise changes. Organizations can also leverage real-time code evaluation with code analysis to understand patching responses.
Overseeing change management
This endeavor can be cumbersome, but DevSecOps offers a better way. Security professionals can review recommended changes from development. Then, they can determine if it’s suitable for the product or not in terms of security. Doing so in this way identifies concerns early—not later in the process.
Monitoring compliance
Every financial institution has to be a stickler for compliance; it’s not an option. The larger the operation, the more complex monitoring can be. With DevSecOps, you can ensure a constant state of compliance and that you’re audit-ready across all products.
Detecting and investigating threats
The ability to classify emerging threats that have the potential to be a concern is another benefit of the DevSecOps framework. It enables quick movement on these for the entire team.
Creating a security framework and best practices
While security experts lead the way, it’s really the responsibility of all parties. Having standardization around your framework and best practices keeps everyone on the same page.
Making security more reliable
Reliability is at the heart of DevOps, and that’s no different once security is in the picture. Now, through automation tools for code scanning, testing, identifying anomalies, and better visibility, security is consistent, and you aren’t starting from scratch every time. You can continue to build on your practices, learning and evolving as needed to deliver products and experiences that meet user experience needs and security thresholds.
How a DevSecOps Approach Correlates with Fintech Needs
Looking at the specific responsibilities for DevSecOps, it’s easy to see their correlation to financial industries. The software lifecycle in banking is intense. There’s no room for mistakes or deploying an uncertain product. The impact of that could be something as simple as frustrating users to leaving flaws in place for a hacker to exploit.
By using this framework, financial organizations can continue to quickly deploy upgrades to software to ensure excellent usability without sacrificing security. The type of confidence that DevSecOps brings to software development just isn’t possible with traditional processes.
Is Your Financial Software Development Team Leveraging DevSecOps?
The future of banking appears to be digital. Delivering a great app experience for users will provide you with an advantage. However, security should be part of the foundation, and you can achieve that with DevSecOps.
If you’re transforming your software practices to DevSecOps or expanding your team based on demand, contact our DevOps recruiting experts today to learn about our services.
