ADAPTIVE CHAOSSECOPS: INTEGRATING CONTINUOUS SECURITY, IMMUTABLE INFRASTRUCTURE, AND CONTROLLED CHAOS FOR RESILIENT SOFTWARE DELIVERY

Abstract

This paper presents a comprehensive framework for integrating security into modern continuous delivery and operations lifecycles by synthesizing established DevOps/DevSecOps practices with emergent ideas in chaos engineering, immutable infrastructure, and zero-trust secrets management. Motivated by the limitations of traditional security approaches when applied to agile and continuous environments, the work surveys core practices (continuous delivery, automated testing, infrastructure as code), identifies systemic gaps in threat-driven automation, and proposes a cohesive operational model—termed ChaosSecOps—that places controlled, automated disruption and immutable security controls at the center of risk mitigation and resilience building. The methodology described is conceptual and prescriptive: it draws on prior empirical and theoretical work about automation in pipelines, vulnerability scanning, cultural transformation for security ownership, and threat intelligence integration to produce an operational playbook for practitioners and a research agenda for evaluators. Key contributions include (1) articulation of principles that reconcile rapid release velocity with continuous assurance (traceable, automated security gates, ephemeral pipelines, and immutable secrets), (2) a taxonomy of security test modalities and their placement in the pipeline, and (3) concrete recommendations for measuring security resilience using chaos-inspired experiments rather than solely relying on vulnerability counts. The paper concludes by discussing limitations, potential pitfalls (including over-reliance on automation and cultural barriers), and concrete directions for future work, including empirical evaluation, tooling gaps, and policy implications.