Infrastructure as Code (IaC), serverless computing/Function as a Service (FaaS), containers, and other Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) tools are being used for application development and cloud deployment. However, each of these technologies can become an attack vector that hackers can exploit to penetrate the cloud system.
Using open-source software has several benefits, including access to the source code, cost savings, flexibility, customization, community support, and availability of cutting-edge technology. The fact that application artifacts are still vulnerable to security issues like host security, code injection, credential theft, and container image vulnerability could endanger businesses.
One of the biggest concerns for organizations in the modern application development process is the leakage of secret information and credentials. With the surge in the use of public repositories such as GitHub, SourceForge, Bitbucket, and GitLab, code repositories have become the most significant vector for secret leakages, with human errors and misconfigurations being the most significant vulnerability factors in the application development process.
Organizations need to focus on shift-left security to strengthen their security protection of cloud-native applications throughout their lifecycle to minimize the risks across all cloud infrastructures, workloads, open-source software, artifacts, and in the CI/CD pipeline. HubSpot and Segment are software-centric companies that provide tools for different business functions, such as marketing, sales, customer service, operation, content management, and customer data management platforms. Dealing with many customers and their data, both companies need to focus on shift-left security for their Web applications and users’ accounts with privileged access. Maintaining credentials and secrets in the DevOps workflow is crucial for companies like Gong, ZoomInfo, and Salsify, which provide modern business applications and API integration with other business solutions.
Shift-left Security Starts with CI/CD Pipeline Security
Shift-left security has become an essential component of the secure software development lifecycle, emphasizing the integration of security measures into the development process as early as possible. CI/CD pipeline security has also become a critical part of the DevOps process, automating the build, test, and deployment of applications once the codes are developed and committed to the repository. However, CI/CD pipeline faces many security risks that can cause severe repercussions to organizations. These include insecure code, exposure of secrets and credentials, security misconfiguration of the CI/CD pipeline tools, lack of privileged access control, and open-source software security (supply chain security).
Therefore, embedding security in the CI/CD pipeline is vital, and organizations need to embrace the concept and culture of DevSecOps. Key technologies for CI/CD pipeline security include source composition analysis (SCA), security testing with source code scanning (SAST) for application code vulnerability scanning, and dynamic application security testing (DAST) for functional testing, access control, secret management, registry scanning for container image vulnerability scanning, and runtime security.
Using open-source software has many advantages, including having access to the source code, saving money, being flexible, customizable, receiving community support, and having access to cutting-edge technology. By integrating with all CI/CD tools, Check Point CloudGuard can help automate the process of secret protection at build time and uncover and monitor supply chain gaps to help organizations manage the risks across the CI/CD process.
In conclusion:
- CI/CD pipeline security is a critical part of the DevOps process, and it is necessary to embed security at every stage of the software development lifecycle.
- Check Point Technologies provides a comprehensive solution that can help organizations address security issues from code to cloud, and their CloudGuard solution can provide developer-focused, end-to-end security for CI/CD pipelines.
- By implementing DevSecOps practices and technologies, organizations can significantly reduce costs and speed up time to market while improving security.
