This is the fifth in our five-part series on DevSecOps basics. Part one offers nine tips to truly shift left. Part two outlines the steps needed to create silo-free collaboration. Part three looks at the importance of automated security testing. And part four details how to create a strong security culture.

Standardizing security policies comes in a variety of forms: regulatory compliance, access controls, acceptable use policies, security as code, and automation, to name a few. Ultimately, the idea is that your security team knows exactly what policies and methods have been used or applied to each project.

The goals of standardization are consistency, traceability, and repeatability. By consistently using the same security methods across all work, security knows what has been protected and what hasn’t. This helps them apply additional measures where necessary, and makes them aware of any needed exceptions. Ensuring that security methods are repeatable helps to expand adoption and scale security to the entire organization or enterprise.

Building a standardized security program

A holistic security program should be composed of different levels of policies and compliance. Some policies should be company-wide, such as an acceptable use policy, some will fulfill regulations like the GDPR or CCPA, and some will be specific to certain organizations within your business.

Standardizing security in DevOps

DevSecOps can be executed sustainably at scale with standardized security practices. Here are five ways to standardize security across all of your development projects.

Educate

Provide security training and education to every employee. Companywide security initiatives help to build a security culture and empower employees to take responsibility for security in their own work. Standardized training also spreads awareness of mandatory policies and alerts employees to the actions taken to both secure day-to-day operations and protect their customers.

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