Security is a huge deal these days, from small businesses to large corporations, data that is stored on servers must be secure, and that means that any code that makes it to deployment must be safe from vulnerabilities that could threaten the security of the entire network. Code only does what it is programmed to do; therefore, it is often human error, or something more nefarious, that results in a security breach in your code. Providing added security throughout the CICD pipeline is a must if you want to be sure that your, and your clients’, data is secure once a new segment of code has made it to live deployment.
DevOps members are not inherently security experts, and they often don’t have the time to become security experts, so having security teams on board at various points in the CICD pipeline is a must to ensure only safe code is being deployed. Security teams should be augmenting and empowering your DevOps, and they should be working alongside them cooperatively—they should never just be added as an afterthought.
Security Technique One: Scan IaC Templates
Many DevOps teams have started adopting Infrastructure-as-Code templates in their CICD pipeline, such as Amazon CloudFormation, HashiCorp Terraform, or Azure Resource Manager. While these IaC templates greatly help in the process of automation for rapid deployment, tear down, and managing infrastructure, if they are not properly secured, they can become a liability. Your security team, working with the DevOps team, should implement some form of purpose-built security tool that can scan IaC templates to can give concise results that highlight any misconfigured template, as well as provide any information needed regarding security failures. By scanning and detecting misconfigurations that could result in security issues before the deployment of the code, you can save yourself a lot of costly incidents.
Security Technique Two: Scan Kubernetes Application Manifests
Once again, misconfigurations can be the downfall to any great codebase, and when it comes to deploying applications using Kubernetes, these misconfigurations appear within the application manifest YAML file. Your DevOps team, while producing proprietary code, are likely to also use OpenSource code, which is often full of default parameters in configuration files, and if this is not properly addressed, it can lead to security holes. Your security team should provide your DevOps with a scanner that can scan for these default parameters and other insecure and noncompliant configurations during the CICD pipeline, before the code is deployed.
Security Technique Three: Scan Container Images
Container images are commonly deployed in DevOps. They are lightweight, standalone, executable pieces of software that are often pulled from public repositories, and this can introduce security risks if not properly vetted. Deploying purpose-built security scanning tools for these container images can give your DevOps team the proper detailed vulnerability information they need to ensure that, when they do deploy, these container images won’t be a liability. Performing image scans should be done multiple times during the CICD pipeline to ensure DevOps knows of any risks—and has the time to produce fixes for them. Ensuring only secured container images are deployed will keep your network and data safe from intrusion through the container images.
With the proper security practices and techniques in place, you can ensure that the next deployment by your DevOps team is secure. Are you ready to rethink automation and the CICD pipeline with your DevOps team? Contact Crossvale today for solutions that can ensure your vision of the future for your company.
