A DevOps Approach to Improving Security in Healthcare
Many healthcare organizations modernize their legacy applications using a DevOps approach, which brings development and operations teams together to improve the speed, quality and security of app development. DevOps processes can increase velocity, shorten resolution times, improve end-user satisfaction and spur innovation. They can also reduce security risks for organizations that employ them effectively.
A further refinement of DevOps is the DevSecOps approach, in which security plays a foundational role in the development process. DevSecOps automates the security testing of applications as they are undergoing modernization. Any security issues detected in an app must be remediated before it can move to the next stage of development or production.
“When you’re trying to modernize applications, you want to look at every key aspect, and that includes things like which dependencies they use from a security perspective,” Peters says. “If they’re using containers, are they secure?”
Addressing these concerns early in the modernization process helps to ensure security issues are resolved before they can lead to a data breach.
LEARN MORE: How application modernization supports digital transformation.
Important Security Objectives for Application Modernization
Application modernization projects present healthcare organizations with an opportunity to further enhance their security posture by integrating security measures. For example, an application can be incorporated in an organization’s zero-trust security approach. Zero trust requires all users — whether inside or outside an organization’s network — to be authenticated, authorized and continuously validated for security configuration and posture before being granted access to an application. Adoption of zero trust has risen sharply in recent years. A recent report from Okta notes that 58 percent of healthcare organization had implemented a defined zero-trust initiative in 2022, up from 37 percent in 2021. And 37 percent of organizations surveyed at the time planned to have a defined zero trust security initiative in place in the next 12 to 18 months.
