Automating DevSecOps with Sysdig and PagerDuty

Effectively responding to cloud security incidents can be daunting for organizations expanding rapidly in the cloud. Whether you face a policy violation or an active threat, quick and reliable alerting and response are essential to keeping cloud services secure and available. For many organizations, Sysdig and PagerDuty each play a critical role in automating DevSecOps and helping modern IT operations and security teams respond effectively. 

The power of integrated cloud security and incident management

Cloud security is a team sport — both from a personnel and a tooling standpoint. Customers use the Sysdig platform to gain comprehensive security coverage and deep visibility into cloud and container environments. PagerDuty, on the other hand, provides users with a central hub for managing incidents, automating escalations, and facilitating collaboration across teams.

When you integrate Sysdig with PagerDuty’s incident management system, you can deliver a streamlined response workflow, automating DevSecOps and ensuring that cloud issues are directed appropriately and addressed without delay.

How the Sysdig + PagerDuty integration works

Once you’ve set up the connection between Sysdig and PagerDuty, as Sysdig detects cloud security issues like runtime threats, anomalous container activity, and vulnerabilities, alerts and key details transmit from Sysdig to PagerDuty.

This is where PagerDuty takes over, automatically assigning and escalating incidents to the appropriate on-call engineer or team and providing a platform for real-time collaboration. PagerDuty also enables automation of actions, executing predefined workflows to address issues and streamline response.

Sysdig and PagerDuty each offer detailed visibility into the lifecycle of incidents, from detection to resolution, with event timelines and logs to help with incident post-mortems and continuous improvement.

Key benefits of automatic DevSecOps with Sysdig + PagerDuty

• Faster response times: With Sysdig’s alerts automatically routed to PagerDuty, critical incidents are handled the moment they occur. PagerDuty assigns the incident, escalates as needed, and ensures the right team responds — automatically — saving valuable time.
• Centralized incident management: With Sysdig alerts flowing into PagerDuty, everything is managed in one place. No more jumping between platforms — whether monitoring, alerting, or incident management, PagerDuty centralizes your operations for faster resolution.
• Reduced alert fatigue: Sysdig’s rich detection capabilities combined with PagerDuty’s intelligent routing and escalation features ensure the right people are notified at the right time. This minimizes noise and alert fatigue, allowing teams to focus on what matters most.
• Improved incident tracking: PagerDuty’s incident management provides detailed insights into how each incident was handled, including timelines, severity levels, and resolution metrics. This visibility is invaluable for post-incident analysis and ongoing process improvements. PagerDuty can leverage all the detailed context provided by Sysdig to make the remediation of cloud security incidents efficient and easy.
• Seamless collaboration: Sysdig and PagerDuty, when used together, help break down the silos between the cloud security function and the incident responders. Whether your teams are distributed or working in different time zones, PagerDuty simplifies collaboration across teams. Real-time comments, event tracking, and integrations with other tools help you resolve incidents more efficiently.

Cloud native security incident response: Why it’s different (and how Sysdig + PagerDuty help)

Cloud and container security incidents are unique. They carry higher stakes and often require different workflows than infrastructure-related issues. Security breaches, policy violations, or unusual behavior in your containerized environment demand a rapid, coordinated response to minimize risk and damage.

Here’s why Sysdig and PagerDuty are particularly effective for Security Incident Response (IR):

• Context-rich alerts for faster action: Sysdig provides detailed security context in its security alerts, whether it’s a container compromise or suspicious network activity. This helps teams understand the scope of the issue immediately. PagerDuty ensures these alerts are escalated to the right security expert without delay, speeding up response times.
• Escalation and automation for security workflows: Security incidents often require multiple responders — incident commanders, security analysts, and compliance officers. PagerDuty supports custom escalation policies and automated workflows for security incidents, ensuring the right people are notified instantly and predefined actions are executed automatically. 
• Automating DevSecOps collaboration: Security incidents require rapid collaboration. PagerDuty’s event timelines, real-time commenting, and multi-stakeholder support enable teams to respond efficiently. Sysdig’s detailed audit logs and forensics help teams investigate the root cause, track down affected systems, and strengthen preventative controls post-incident.

Setting Up Sysdig + PagerDuty for security operations

Setting up Sysdig’s integration with PagerDuty for your security operations center (SOC) is quick and straightforward. Here’s a high-level overview:

1. Create a PagerDuty account: If you don’t have one yet, create an account and set up a service for on-call schedules and escalation policies for security incidents. The service must contain a Sysdig integration to generate your integration Key.

2. Add PagerDuty as a Notification Channel in Sysdig:
   • Log in to Sysdig.
   • Go to Settings > Notification Channels.
   • Add PagerDuty as a notification channel and enter your PagerDuty integration key.

• Next, go to Policies > Runtime Policies, edit, and add the new notification channel to specific policies.

3. Test the Integration: Once set up, test the integration by navigating to Settings > Notification Channels > Test Channel in Sysdig to confirm that the connection works properly.
4. Monitor and Respond: After the integration is live, Sysdig security alerts will flow directly into PagerDuty. Your team can manage and resolve incidents in PagerDuty’s centralized platform.

Automating DevSecOps response with Sysdig and PagerDuty

The Sysdig + PagerDuty integration brings together powerful detections, security insights, and automated incident management into one seamless workflow. Whether it’s a security breach, policy violation, or behavioral anomaly, you’ll gain faster detection, quicker response, and more efficient collaboration.

By automating your incident response process, you reduce the time it takes to resolve issues and minimize the risk of disruptions to your services.

To learn more about improving your response readiness in the cloud, check out the Checklist for Cloud Detection and Response.