1. Describe DevSecOps security.

DevSecOps is an acronym for development, security, and operations. Its philosophic mantra is to make all individuals accountable for security and to apply security decisions and actions at the same velocity and volume as those of development and operations.

2. Where does configuration management belong in DevOps?

It enables the management of many systems and their changes.
Configured resources handle IT infrastructure as a consequence.
Aside from maintaining the integrity of the entire infrastructure, it helps in managing and administering multiple servers.

3. How does DevOps enhance system security?

By using VM images or scanning containers for specified software defects, rejecting builds containing known buggy packages, and running static analysis tools on calls to potentially dangerous system functions, DevOps enhances system security.

4. Can DevOps be achieved without setting up continuous delivery systems and processes?

Yes. Ad-hoc automation of build, deployment, and environment provisioning activities can be employed to enforce DevOps with the ultimate goal of reducing MTTC and MTTR.

5. Is Kubernetes secure?

Kubernetes has inherent benefits for security. As an example, application containers are usually completely replaced with fresh versions as compared to being patched or updated. Accordingly, strict version control is achievable, and rapid rollbacks are feasible when a bug in new code is discovered.

6. Explain the different phases of the continuous software delivery model.

The steps of the continuous delivery model are as follows:

Developers checking in code that triggers WebHooks and initiates CI Builds
Application compilation and creation of deployment artifacts
Deployment artifacts uploaded to art factories
Provisioning of test environments,
Application artifacts distribution across different test environments
Production deployment of app artifacts.

7. How do you ensure security is incorporated into the whole process of software development?

Infusing security practices within the software development lifecycle at each stage, from performing security reviews during design through the use of secure coding methodologies, regular vulnerability scanning, and security testing in the CI/CD pipeline, is something that I strongly advocate.

8. How have you employed a continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipeline to implement security controls?

In my last role, I incorporated security controls into the CI/CD pipeline through tools such as static code analysis, dynamic application security testing, and container scanning. This enabled us to automate security scans before deployment and identify vulnerabilities early in development.

9. What would you do if a production application was vulnerable?

If I were to discover a vulnerability in a production application, I would first assess its impact and severity. Second, I would engage the development team to work together to develop a mitigation plan, perhaps consisting of patching, code changes, or temporary workarounds. I would also notify everyone about the issue and ensure the response was coordinated.

10. What is "shift left" in DevSecOps?

"Shift left" is a term that refers to the practice of shifting security considerations and actions forward in the software development cycle. As soon as possible, preferably at the requirements and design stage, security testing, code analysis, and vulnerability assessment need to be incorporated. This way, we are able to identify security issues early on and address them before they worsen and become more expensive to fix.
11. Are your projects using any specific security frameworks or standards, e.g., OWASP or NIST?

OWASP (Open Web Application Security Project) and NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) frameworks have both been applied in my projects, you responded correctly. I know the OWASP Top Ten Vulnerabilities and have implemented proper safeguards. Moreover, I assessed risks according to NIST guidelines for secure software development.

12. Give an example of a time when you needed to balance project timelines with security issues.

Once we had a narrow window to prepare for the new feature release for a project. Nevertheless, one significant defect turned up while undertaking security testing. We rapidly analyzed the threat and harm caused by the vulnerability and installed an emergency solution to stem the short-term hazard to bring both security parameters and project schedules in equilibrium with each other. During a later release, we then laid a complete solution in anticipation of healing the root of the issue.

13. How can you lock down DevSecOps?

The following are a few best practices for organizations wishing to adopt DevSecOps.

Make automation your best friend.
Testing the dependencies on your code.
Don't take on more than you can handle.
Some tools are far more convenient than others.
Although threat modeling is difficult, you've got to do it.
Teach secure coding to your developers.

14. There are four pillars of DevOps. What are they?

Planning, sourcing, building, and delivering are the four pillars of a successful DevOps strategy. By creating these four new software development and delivery pillars, your organization will be able to build apps at DevOps pace and volume but remain effective and nimble.

15. What are the three elements of DevOps?

These three basic elements must be included in any successful DevOps pipeline:

CI/CD framework
Build automation tools
Source control management

16. How would you respond in a circumstance when security requirements and commercial goals are at odds?

In such a situation, I believe open communication and collaboration between stakeholders are essential. I would assess the risks of deviating from security needs and recommend alternative security controls or mitigations. It's important to reach an agreement on the likely effect and explore any trade-offs that balance security and economic objectives.

17. What are your strategies for securing serverless functions?

A complete serverless security plan must concentrate on four aspects: applying least-privilege IAM roles with AWS IAM analyzer, encrypting environment variables with KMS, defining function-level security controls, and keeping runtime dependencies up to date with AWS Lambda layers.

18. How do you enforce supply chain security?

Supply chain security must have a defense-in-depth strategy. Engineers must have a private registry of artifacts, do SHA-256 verification for the dependencies, use Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) for tracking purposes, and have continuous monitoring through tools such as Snyk. Third-party packages must all be scanned automatically for security before approval.

19. What's your strategy for automating API security testing?

API security testing must involve static analysis with OpenAPI spec validation, dynamic testing with OWASP ZAP API scan, and contract testing with Pact. Business logic vulnerabilities should be tested with custom scripts. The results must be incorporated into the CI/CD pipeline with automatic blocking for critical results.

20. In a distributed system, how would you ensure the integrity and confidentiality of sensitive data?

I would implement encryption techniques such as data-at-rest encryption, transport layer encryption (TLS/SSL), and field-level encryption to ensure confidentiality and integrity of the sensitive data in a distributed system. For ensuring monitoring of data access and detection of any unauthorized activity, I would also implement access controls, data segregation, and audit trails.

21. How do you integrate mutation testing?

Engineers should employ tools like PIT Mutation Testing for Java and Stryker for JavaScript. These should run in nightly builds to avoid pipeline delays. A minimum mutation score threshold of 80% should be maintained, with improvements tracked through metrics dashboards.
22. How do you implement security monitoring and alerting?

Security monitoring must use the ELK stack for log collection, Prometheus and Grafana for metrics, and Falco for runtime security monitoring. Critical alerts must be sent to PagerDuty and security channels. Critical metrics must be critical vulnerabilities, mean time to remediation, and security test coverage.

23. How do you manage automated incident response?

Incident response can be automated with the help of tools such as Cortex XSOAR. Automatic containment action should be initiated upon detection of incidents based on playbooks. The system should also correlate information from various sources and trigger suitable response workflows.

24. Outline your experience in forensics and security incident response.

I managed the responses to security incidents in my previous role. Identifying the cause and preventing such incidents in the future, involved developing incident response plans, conducting investigations, reviewing logs and other artifacts, collaborating with other stakeholders, implementing remediation plans, and conducting post-incident forensics.

25. How do you balance security needs with development speed?

The equilibrium will have to be obtained by automation and developer empowerment. Security tools need to plug into IDEs to provide immediate feedback. Teams need to have golden templates and secure components to reuse, with security champions to advise them.

26. Take me through your strategy around container security.

Container security needs to be achieved through a layered approach: scanning of base images with Trivy in CI/CD, runtime protection with Falco rules, pod security policies and network policies at the Kubernetes level, and periodic vulnerability scanning of running containers with tools like Aqua Security.

27. Describe why security scanning tools (e.g., SAST, DAST, IAST) are important.

Security scanning tools are used to detect vulnerabilities early in the development cycle. Consider the various forms of detectors for a treasure hunt:

SAST (Static Application Security Testing): Inspects code without running it, such as reviewing a treasure map for potential traps. It excels at detecting coding mistakes that create security vulnerabilities.
DAST (Dynamic Application Security Testing): Tests the application in motion, similar to testing the ground with a metal detector. It's good at detecting vulnerabilities only revealed at runtime.
IAST (Interactive Application Security Testing): Merges SAST and DAST, similar to having a guide familiar with both the map and the ground. It gives feedback in real-time during testing.

Applying these tools in combination gives complete coverage and assists in building secure applications from the ground up.

28. How would you protect a Kubernetes cluster?

Protecting a Kubernetes cluster is a multi-layered endeavor. Here's a summary of important considerations:

Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Establish fine-grained permissions to limit access to Kubernetes resources according to roles and responsibilities. This confines the blast radius of possible breaches.
Network Policies: Use network segmentation and control traffic between pods and namespaces through Network Policies. This disallows unauthorized communication within the cluster.
Pod Security Policies (or Pod Security Admission): Establish security profiles for pods, limiting their access to resources such as the host filesystem or network. This prevents the scope of compromised containers.
Secrets Management: Employ a specialized secrets management tool such as HashiCorp Vault or Kubernetes Secrets encrypted at rest to hold sensitive information securely.
Image Security: Use container image scanning to detect and prevent vulnerabilities in running images. Clair or Trivy can be used and added to the CI/CD pipeline.
Security Auditing: Support audit logging to monitor activity in the cluster, offering useful information for incident response and forensic analysis.
Regular Security Assessments: Perform penetration testing and vulnerability scanning to detect and fix potential security vulnerabilities.

29. How do you incorporate security testing into the CI/CD pipeline?

Incorporating security testing into the CI/CD pipeline is important to catch and fix vulnerabilities early. This can be done by integrating different security testing tools and practices at different stages.

Static Application Security Testing (SAST): SonarQube is brought in early in the development cycle to analyze code for vulnerabilities without running it. This catches coding mistakes that can develop into security vulnerabilities.
Software Composition Analysis (SCA): Tools such as Dependency-Check inspect open-source libraries within the application to detect known vulnerabilities. This is brought in during the build process.
Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST): Software such as OWASP ZAP is employed to scan running applications for vulnerabilities like cross-site scripting (XSS) and SQL injection. This is usually done during the testing or staging process.
Container Image Scanning: Software such as Clair or Trivy scans container images for operating system and package vulnerabilities. This is part of the container build process.
Infrastructure as Code Scanning: Tools such as Checkov or tfsec scan IaC templates (Terraform, CloudFormation) for security misconfigurations prior to deployment.

30. What are some typical cloud environment security vulnerabilities?

Cloud environments pose specialized security issues due to their dynamic nature and shared responsibility model. Some typical vulnerabilities include:

Misconfigurations: Ineffectively configured access controls, exposed storage buckets, and open services can provide unauthorized access to sensitive information.
Insecure APIs: Insecure or weakly designed APIs can be abused by attackers to gain unauthorized access to confidential data or interfere with services.
Account hijacking: Hacked credentials can cause unwanted access to cloud resources and data breaches.
Insider threats: Insiders acting negligently or maliciously can also be a major threat to cloud security.
Data breaches: Confidential data residing in cloud environments can be accessed by attackers.