CI/CD falls under the category of DevOps, which is formed by amalgamating both practices of continuous integration and continuous delivery. The main purpose of continuous integration and continuous delivery, i.e., CI/CD, is to automate almost all the human intervention that is being performed manually, which was a prerequisite to opt for new code.
But now, with CI/CD pipeline, developers have the luxury of making changes into the code that can be directly automated, tested, and pushed out for delivery and deployment. CI/CD helps you minimize the downtime and helps you release the code quicker. Here we will learn top CI/CD security best practices to get the job done in an easier way without the encumbrance of doing manual work.
What is Continuous Integration?
Continuous integration (CI) is simply the process of integrating all the code changes you have made into the core branch of the shared source code repository. It automatically tests every single change you have conducted. By implementing continuous integration, you can instantly catch errors and the issues of security, and fix them with simplistic solutions.
The changes are being merged often that subsequently call for automated testing of changes in code and validation process with the minimization of code conflict, even though the group of developers is working on this very application.
The practice of common code validation starts with the analysis of static code which is conducted to verify the quality of code. As soon as the code passes the test, CI starts with its process of automating and compiling the code for the upcoming automated testing.
What is Continuous Delivery?
Continuous delivery (CD) is a software development practice that works with continuous integration for the sake of automating infrastructure provisioning and app release procedures.
Soon after the code gets tested and built as a part of the CI process, continuous delivery does its job in the eventual segment of the process to make sure that it can be deployed smoothly be it any environment at any time.
With the help of continuous delivery, software is created in order to be deployed to production at any suitable time. Then you have the flexibility of getting the deployments automated or doing it manually; you can opt for either of both.
Let's take a look at the market overview of DevSecOps:
- DevSecOps Market Size And Forecast. DevSecOps Market size was valued at USD 3.73 Billion in 2021 and is expected to reach USD 41.66 Billion by 2030, with the growth at a CAGR of 30.76% from 2022 to 2030.
- As per the recent report by KBV Research, the global DevOps market will fall into the figure of $88 million by 2023 growing at a compound annual rate of 18%. That far outpaces the development of the international IT market. Additionally, as per Forrester Research, 50% of organizations have opted for DevOps, reaching what Forrester calls "Escape Velocity."
- The overview of this CI/CD report suggests that 47% of developers use continuous integration or deployment in some way.
- 96% of CTOs have mentioned their business would benefit from automating security and compliance processes, a key principle of DevSecOps.
Is Using CI/CD Actually Important?
The purpose of CI/CD pipelines is pretty critical and it requires certain tedious procedures. CI/CD pipelines also require dealing with confidentiality of applications and their infrastructure. This means that if someone gets unauthorized access to your CI/CD pipeline, then he/she is entitled to have unlimited power to breach your entire infrastructure or deploy malicious code.
This is the key reason; the reason for CI/CD pipeline security and DevOps security, this is why you should opt for the best practices for the sake of securing CI/CD pipelines as it's a prerequisite process.
6 Best CI/CD Pipeline Practices to Follow for Optimum Security
So, here we begin with the most important segment of our blog, which is the guide to follow the best practices for optimal security in CI/CD pipeline:
1. Analyze The Key Factors That Can Cause a Threat To a Secure Connection
Initially, you need to first understand the factors and vulnerable points wherein the chances of security threats are comparatively higher. It's good practice to examine the factors that require an additional layer of security in the whole deployment process.
That does not really mean the rest of the factors are frivolous; avoiding any connection to the CI/CD pipeline could be a major point of compromise. Each and every connection should be made over Transport Layer Security.
2. Don't Let the Test Environments stay Wide Open
Mind you, this is the biggest blunder you can commit! Generally, what you do is you deploy multiple test environments for testing your product, but these environments are accessible for free to developers out there for further manual testing. These kinds of environments are not layered with robust security, especially in terms of staging or production environments.
But the crux is that they are absolutely working environments, which means if an attacker tries to get access to these, he/she is free to use it as a stepping stone to other places in your infrastructure. Hence, it's pretty crucial to secure your test environment in order to make it as secure as your other environments.
3. Never Unlock Your Confidential Stuff; Keep Your Secretive Stuff Safe
By secrets we mean authentication credentials, like usernames and passwords, API tokens, SSH keys and encryption keys, these things are the keys to get access to applications and services.
They are actually the biggest unlocking element for a project's data or resources. If these very elements are lacking with robust security, then they can possibly be very useful for hackers to breach the data and cause intellectual property theft.
You need to take care of the location where you locate secrets and who has access to these credentials with a vigorous key management service. This encrypts, accumulates, and injects secrets at runtime only at the time when they are actually needed. So, they are not disclosed at the time an application's built or deployed, nor do they appear in the actual source code.
Although, if you use a key management tool, it's still a good practice to monitor and audit code repositories to catch and remove confidential elements that have been committed to the code base. What you can also do is use tools to prevent the code from being pushed or passed on in pull requests.
Software engineers should never practice to write code that prints a secret to the console log, not even while they are testing. Some CI/CD and DevOps tools can put a shadow on secrets if they are printed or output in any way, such as to the console or debug logs.
4. Meticulously Operate And Clean Up
A continuous software delivery pipeline, as its definition suggests, is a flow of constantly moving parts and processes for builds and deployments, but avoid being distracted from the cadence and focus on proper security maintenance chores.
Always keep the practice of monitoring the CI/CD environment as it runs, and eliminate the temporary resources, like containers and VMs, after you are done with the tasks. To decrease the chances of attack surface of containers and VMs, terminate the unnecessary tools and utilities.
5. Keep Yourself Aware And Always Have A Backup Plan
With a CI/CD pipeline, you can strike a balance between third-party resources and services in a pipeline at any desired time. IT teams are supposed to diligently monitor the security feeds and notices of vendors whose products and services they have opted to immediately discover and act on any breaking news. You ought to initiate an incident response plan to manage such an event and help to curtail any impact on the pipeline.
For instance, in response to the Codecov breach, popular labels like Netflix and the Vim text editor instantly do the rotation of their credentials as a precaution for security purposes.
HashiCorp rotated one of its GNU Privacy Guard keys, which is used for release signing and verification. Whenever you are adding new tools or services to the CI/CD pipeline, you are supposed to update and add them in the incidence response plan at the same time.
When we are talking about security, CI/CD pipelines are core to many organizations' products and services, so you should be considering them as important as other operations that are critical to the business. Secure them accordingly to impede supply chain attacks or other security failures that will have an adverse impact on the build and delivery processes.
Segment them from the rest of the enterprise network, after operating, monitor them on a regular basis just to make sure that your CI/CD pipeline is safe from suspicious or inappropriate activities.
There are innumerable interconnecting services and components, many of them are supplied or controlled by third parties, meaning, there is no possibility of a set-and-forget approach when it's about pipeline security.
6. Keep Your CI/CD Tool Up to Date
We often put the factor of updating CI/CD on secondary priority, but it's not like that; updating your CI/CD tool is not something you would take a risk of postponing. You might not know if your CI/CD tool is up to date with bugs and vulnerabilities.
If you don't care to update your CI/CD, you will be at the risk of your data being breached, and the aforementioned best practices will all go in vain. It's always the best and primary practice to implement good access management. If you are willing to leave your CI/CD tool in a version that consists of vulnerability; it definitely welcomes an attacker to simply bypass authentication.
Concluding Statement
Now that we have reached the end of this blog, we expect you to take care of the CI/CD pipeline in the best possible way. Bear in mind that it's the main door to all your valuable data, which could possibly ruin your whole effort you have put into your organization up until now.
Considering this process flippant is not a good idea; you already have an idea of what consequences you shall be facing if you take such steps. Hoping to help you further with such concepts.
Author Bio
Mehul Rajput is the CEO of MindInventory, a software development company that provides web and mobile app solutions from startup to enterprise-level company. His role involves heading the operations related to business and delivery with strategic planning and defining the roadmap for the future.