Learn the 10 key steps to secure your Infrastructure as Code (IaC) workflow in 2024. Improve security, meet industry regulations, and work efficiently with IaC.
Infrastructure as Code (IaC) security is crucial for modern DevOps workflows. Insecure IaC practices can lead to vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and unauthorized data access. Securing IaC ensures your virtual infrastructure is safe, compliant, and well-managed.
Here are the 10 key steps to secure your IaC workflow:
By following these steps, you can improve your organization's security posture, meet industry regulations, and work more efficiently with IaC.
Defining security rules is the first step to secure your IaC workflow. This involves understanding the security needs and compliance rules for your organization. Develop a set of security policies and guidelines that cover security controls, configurations, and best practices for IaC.
Create a security policy that outlines the security requirements for your IaC workflow. This policy should include:
Consider industry standards and compliance regulations when developing your security policy. This includes standards like:
| Standard | Description |
|---|---|
| NIST | National Institute of Standards and Technology guidelines |
| PCI-DSS | Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard |
| HIPAA | Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act |
| GDPR | General Data Protection Regulation |
Incorporate these standards to ensure your IaC workflow meets required security controls.
Align your security policy with your organization's policies and procedures. This includes:
Leverage version control systems (e.g., Git) to manage IaC code changes. Establish code review processes to identify and address security vulnerabilities before merging code.
Using version control systems like Git provides several benefits:
When conducting code reviews, ensure the following items are checked:
| Item | Description |
|---|---|
| Provider versioning | Are all providers used in the Terraform scripts versioned to prevent breaking changes in the future? |
| Repository organization | Is the code split into reusable modules, with separate .tf files where appropriate? |
| Terraform state | Is the Terraform project configured using a remote state backend, with secure storage of state files? |
| Variables | Are all variables defined with type information and descriptions, with no default values supplied for variables that must be supplied by a user? |
| Testing | Are unit and integration tests covering the Terraform code in place? |
Using security scanning and linting tools in your development workflow helps find security risks and misconfigurations in your IaC. This step helps you catch issues early, reducing the chance of security problems in your cloud setup.
IaC scanning tools check your code for misconfigurations, insecure defaults, and known vulnerabilities. The benefits include:
Here are some tools for IaC scanning:
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
| Checkov | Scans IaC code for security misconfigurations and vulnerabilities. |
| Terraform Compliance | Checks Terraform code for compliance with security policies and best practices. |
| TFLint | Analyzes Terraform code for errors, warnings, and security issues. |
Managing secrets securely is key to Infrastructure as Code (IaC) security. Secrets like API keys, passwords, and certificates need proper handling to prevent access and data breaches.
Hardcoding secrets in IaC code is a common mistake. When secrets are hardcoded, they are stored in plain text, making them easily accessible to anyone with access to the code. This can lead to unauthorized access to sensitive data and security issues.
To manage secrets securely, follow these best practices:
When choosing a secrets management tool, consider the following features:
| Tool | Description | Encryption | Access Control | Secret Rotation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HashiCorp's Vault | Centralized secrets management | 🔒 | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| AWS Secrets Manager | Managed secrets service | 🔒 | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Google Cloud Secret Manager | Managed secrets service | 🔒 | ✔️ | ✔️ |
Automating security checks is key to securing your Infrastructure as Code (IaC) workflow. By adding security checks to your Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipelines, you can find and fix security issues early.
Automating security checks offers several benefits:
Here are some tools to automate security checks for IaC code:
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
| KICS | An open-source tool that scans IaC code for security issues and misconfigurations. |
| Checkov | An open-source tool that scans IaC code for security issues and provides fixes. |
| Terraform Scan | A commercial tool that scans Terraform IaC code for security issues and provides fixes. |
When automating security checks, follow these best practices:
Applying least privilege access is key to securing your Infrastructure as Code (IaC) workflow. This principle ensures that users, services, and applications have only the necessary permissions and access to resources, reducing the attack surface and minimizing the risk of security breaches.
Implementing least privilege access offers several benefits:
To implement least privilege access, follow these best practices:
Here are some tools to help you implement least privilege access:
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
| AWS IAM | A cloud-based IAM service that provides fine-grained access control and permissions management. |
| Azure AD | A cloud-based identity and access management solution that provides secure access to resources. |
| Google Cloud IAM | A cloud-based IAM service that provides fine-grained access control and permissions management. |
Detecting and fixing configuration drift is key to keeping your Infrastructure as Code (IaC) workflow secure and stable. Configuration drift happens when the actual state of your infrastructure differs from the desired state defined in your IaC files. This can occur due to manual changes, automated deployments, or undocumented modifications.
Configuration drift can be caused by:
To detect configuration drift, use these tools and techniques:
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
| Terraform | Built-in drift detection feature that compares the actual state with the desired state. |
| CloudFormation | Drift detection feature that identifies changes made outside of CloudFormation. |
| Pulumi | Drift detection feature that identifies changes made outside of Pulumi. |
| Manual audits | Regularly perform manual audits to detect any changes outside of your IaC workflow. |
To fix configuration drift, you can:
Here are some tools to help you detect and fix configuration drift:
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
| Terraform | Provides built-in drift detection and remediation features. |
| CloudFormation | Offers drift detection and remediation features. |
| Pulumi | Includes drift detection and remediation features. |
| Driftctl | An open-source tool for drift detection and remediation for Terraform and CloudFormation. |
| Spacelift | A cloud-based tool that provides drift detection, remediation, automated security checks, and code reviews. |
Immutable infrastructure is key to securing your Infrastructure as Code (IaC) workflow. This approach ensures that infrastructure components remain unchanged after deployment, preventing ad-hoc changes and maintaining consistency.
Immutable infrastructure provides:
To implement immutable infrastructure, follow these steps:
Monitoring and logging IaC deployments are key to keeping your infrastructure secure and stable. This involves tracking all changes, updates, and deployments of your IaC resources.
Logging provides a detailed record of all changes made to your infrastructure. This includes:
Logging helps you:
Monitoring involves tracking the performance and health of your infrastructure in real-time. Key metrics include:
Centralized solutions make it easier to collect and analyze logs and metrics from multiple sources. Popular tools include:
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
| ELK Stack | Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana for log management |
| Splunk | Data analysis and monitoring |
| Datadog | Cloud monitoring and security |
| New Relic | Application performance monitoring |
Setting up alerts and notifications ensures quick response to incidents. Key events to monitor include:
Encourage ongoing improvement and teamwork between development, operations, and security teams. Regularly review and update security policies, practices, and tools. Promote knowledge sharing and cross-training to boost IaC security awareness.
Adopt a collaborative approach to IaC security by:
Improve IaC security by:
The benefits of collaboration and continuous improvement in IaC security include:
| Benefit | Description |
|---|---|
| Enhanced security awareness | Team members become more aware of security practices. |
| Improved security posture | Reduced risk of security issues. |
| Increased efficiency | Teams work more effectively. |
| Better compliance | Align with industry best practices and regulations. |
Securing IaC workflows is important in today's cloud-native world. By following the 10 steps in this guide, you can improve your organization's security, meet industry regulations, and work more efficiently. A secure IaC workflow helps prevent misconfigurations, finds and fixes security issues, and promotes teamwork between development, operations, and security teams.
