DevOps Audit Quiz: Is Your Team Compliant?

Is your DevOps team prepared for the world of compliance? Take our quiz to find out!

DevOps is all about speed, delivering high-quality software rapidly to meet customer demands. However, transitioning to DevOps can be a daunting task, especially when it comes to compliance in software development. Ensuring that your DevOps practices align with standardized compliance controls and documentation is crucial.

In this quiz, we’ll explore the changing landscape of DevOps and compliance. Discover the evolving role of DevOps teams in ensuring compliance, bridging the gap between development and auditing. Find out how prepared your organization is for this new world of DevOps compliance.

Test your knowledge based on the DevOps risk and controls matrix and see if your DevOps team is ready to embrace the challenges of compliance in a fast-paced digital world.

Question 1

DevOps teams can manage the risk of unauthorized changes by ensuring that anyone can make changes manually.

A. True
B. False

Answer

B. False

Explanation

Here’s how a DevOps audit will work. DevOps teams will run all changes through a central version control with multifactor authentication and role-based access. It’s time to embrace peer review — four eyes on all code deployments — and log all changes. Basically, human access to change management is going to be very limited.

Question 2

The new DevOps model product team is how accountable for quality of service in production?

A. Not
B. Sort of
C. Mostly
D. Fully

Answer

D. Fully

Explanation

We know it sounds like a random DevOps audit quiz on the internet is telling you to be more responsible at your job. But we are. We’ll also inform you that with automation, it’s actually fairly easy to make sure production doesn’t screech to a halt on a Tuesday afternoon. If you employ automated analysis of your code as you go through production, you’ll ensure production hums along without any issues.

Question 3

DevOps teams can keep data secure and manage cyber-risk by doing what?

A. Data encryption at rest and in transit
B. Separation of networks and domains
C. Ethical hacking or “red teaming”
D. All of the above

Answer

D. All of the above

Explanation

Auditors are obviously concerned — especially in today’s technology climate — with securing their users’ data. Because there are a near infinite number of entry points for a cyberattack, organizations need a multilayer defense. “You can’t build a fence all by yourself,” I always say — or have said on occasion to minimal effect. Work with your audit and security teams to red team your environment and identify possible vulnerabilities. Use data encryption and separate your networks and domains as another layer of defense. Remember that DevOps should be as secure as it is fast.

Question 4

If you’re making constant changes to your codebase and product, how do you avoid an unwanted customer blast radius?

A. Send out email blasts to customers
B. Canary testing and deployment
C. Recircuit your codebase before each deployment
D. Code ownership on a team level

Answer

B. Canary testing and deployment

Explanation

If you’re updating your codebase and features daily, blast radius is going to be a part of your CD process. But it’s probably not best practice to fight blast radius with email blasts (“Hey there customer, here’s what we changed.”). It’s probably unnecessary and inefficient to recircuit your codebase each time you deploy — which, again, could be daily. Code ownership is always a nice thing to ascribe to, but not nearly concrete enough to solve our problem here. For incremental code changes, canary testing is your best bet to test your changes without disrupting the whole ecosystem.

Question 5

Software delivery must include a bill of materials for every build.

A. True
B. False

Answer

A. True

Explanation

In the rapid pace world of DevOps and CD, sometimes developers have to flip between open source and commercial software. That’s obviously an issue for auditors who might have to track use of intellectual property and possible licensing violations. Developers have to do their part in compliance and provide their auditors with a bill of materials for everything they build.

Question 6

When it comes to a DevOps audit, how can organizations ensure business continuity?

A. Continuous data replication off site
B. Rotation of job responsibility
C. You break it, you buy it policy
D. All of the above

Answer

A. Continuous data replication off site

Explanation

Even if you’re doing everything in DevOps right, your code, systems, network, something will fail. Timely backup and system recovery is as essential to DevOps as continuous quality. One of the best ways to ensure business continuity is have all your data off site and ready to step in when the inevitable failure happens. Rotating job responsibility will improve the quality and collaboration of your work, but when it comes to recovering from a failure, enterprise data replication is your best bet.