DevSecOps is a mindset and culture shift with the core objective of ensuring secure and reliable software development and operations, integrating security into all stages of the software development lifecycle (SDLC)
The first phase of DevSecOps focuses on planning and security requirements engineering, establishing the groundwork for the entire DevSecOps lifecycle
This phase involves integrating security objectives into functional and non-functional requirements, performing threat modeling to identify attack vectors early in the design phase, structuring security user stories that directly mitigate known risks, aligning application features with compliance frameworks, defining a secure architecture and secrets management blueprint, and establishing traceable security controls, risk registers, and audit-ready documentation
The key outcomes of this phase include a shared security vision across dev, sec, and ops teams, formalized threat models and mapped compliance requirements, defined secure-by-default patterns, prioritized risk-based security stories, and planned automated controls and metrics for downstream stages
Ultimately, the success of DevSecOps phase 1 in planning and security requirements engineering will depend on the organisation’s ability to shift security left and ensure that it is fully integrated into the SDLC, from the initial planning phases through to deployment and operations.