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Securing Continuous Integration and Delivery Pipelines

By: Becca Gomby

Oct 18, 2024

Modern software development teams will have individual preferences about whether to use IDEs or which testing framework or coding convention to adopt. However, for teams that want to deliver high-quality software at a rapid pace, continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) is a must-have. Mature, high-performing dev teams lean heavily on their CI/CD pipeline.

Because of this heavy dependence on CI/CD, ensuring the security of your CI/CD pipeline is incredibly important. If a malicious attacker were to exploit a vulnerability in your CI/CD pipeline, the effects could be disastrous. Therefore, to protect your software and mitigate risks, CI/CD pipeline security cannot be an afterthought.

In this article, we’ll look at key practices for securing your CI/CD pipeline. Before diving into those concrete steps, let’s lay some groundwork by understanding what a CI/CD pipeline does and why its security is so important.

Understanding CI/CD Pipelines

A CI/CD pipeline is a series of steps that transform code changes into deployed applications. Executing these steps throughout the pipeline involves several tools. Each tool performs a specialized role as the software progresses through the stages of the pipeline.

Certainly, every development team has its own unique needs and configurations when it comes to the CI/CD pipeline. Nonetheless, the following stages are common to nearly every CI/CD pipeline:

Version control: Application code is stored in a central repository to track changes and facilitate collaboration. When using a source code management system (such as GitHub or GitLab), committing code or opening a pull request often triggers an automated run of the CI/CD pipeline.
Build: When applicable (depending on the programming language or framework), the source code is compiled into executable artifacts, such as binaries or containers.
Test: A suite of predefined, automated tests is run to validate code quality and functionality.
Package: The build artifacts are combined to form a deployable package, which might be a Docker image or a set of files in an AWS S3 bucket.
Deploy: The package is deployed to various environments (such as staging and/or production), which in a cloud setting also involves provisioning the necessary cloud infrastructure to support the deployment.

The Importance of Securing CI/CD Pipelines

At first glance, it may not seem obvious how a security vulnerability in the CI/CD pipeline could lead to far-reaching and disastrous consequences. Let’s consider two of the most significant vectors of attack.

The deployment phase of a CI/CD pipeline requires access to cloud accounts in order to provision and configure infrastructure. This means certain tools in the CI/CD pipeline must be provided with credentials or API keys to access those cloud accounts. As one software engineer put it, “Your CI/CD pipeline has the keys to the kingdom.” If malicious users could exploit an insecure pipeline to steal your cloud account credentials, they could wreak havoc on your entire cloud environment.

What about the pipeline tools that build and package your application? If they were compromised, malicious code could be injected into your application and deployed to production without your knowledge. This could lead to a data breach, unauthorized access to cloud resources, or other security incidents.

In one study, over 20% of organizations surveyed had suffered a pipeline security incident in the past year. Couple this with the staggering number that the global average cost of a data breach to organizations is USD 4.48 million. The security of your CI/CD pipeline and processes is critically important.

Key Practices for Securing Your CI/CD Pipeline

When thinking like an attacker, consider the possible paths through your CI/CD pipeline that they could take to compromise your systems. What steps should be taken to seal off openings and harden your barriers? What measures should be established to help detect an attack in progress? The following key practices, grouped into broader categories, will help you strengthen the security of your CI/CD pipeline.

Access control

The first and most fundamental step in securing your pipeline is controlling who can access it and what they can do with that access. To do this effectively, implement the principle of least privilege: Authorized users should only be granted the minimum permissions necessary to complete their tasks. When you apply this principle to your CI/CD pipeline, you greatly reduce the risk of accidental or malicious misuse.

Role-based access control (RBAC) assigns specific permissions to a user based on the role they play in the development process. Taking this approach is more secure than giving blanket access to individual users.

Finally, enforce multi-factor authentication (MFA) as a prerequisite for accessing critical areas of the pipeline. This additional layer of security mitigates the risk of stolen credentials.

Code and artifacts

Developers pay close attention to the security concerns in the code that they write. However, modern software depends on many third-party (and often open-source) libraries and packages. Vulnerability scanning is a key part of your CI/CD pipeline security, examining your code and its dependencies to detect any security flaws that could be exploited.

Run dependency updates to patch and secure any third-party code or tools. These updates address known vulnerabilities and are a simple and effective way to stay up-to-date on all things security.

Software supply chain security measures help prevent compromised packages and tooling from entering your pipeline. These measures include leveraging software bills of materials (SBOMs), Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) databases, and trusted repositories.

When code is verified as secure, the pipeline builds the application, storing the artifacts in preparation for deployment. This intermediate stage presents an opportunity for attackers. Artifact security measures—such as encrypted storage and secure repositories—help you minimize the risk of unauthorized access or data leaks.

Code signing is another important measure here. This ensures the authenticity of your code artifacts, verifying that they are legitimate and have not been tampered with.

Build environments

The built environment is the space where your CI/CD pipeline compiles, tests, and packages your code. These environments include the operating system, dependencies, libraries, compilers, and other tools. Today, these environments are often containerized or provisioned as virtual machines. Performing container image scanning ensures that any container images used in the build process are free of vulnerabilities.

Because of the potential for vulnerabilities in your application code or the injection of malicious code, isolation of your build environments is crucial. This ensures a potential compromise in one build environment doesn’t impact others or have the ability to impact other parts of the CI/CD pipeline.

Implement continuous monitoring of your build processes, as this will help you detect and identify suspicious behavior.

Pipeline configuration

The security of your pipeline’s configuration is just as important as the code it runs. One of the most significant risks is the exposure of sensitive information like credentials. This is where secrets management comes into play—using a secure service to store sensitive data can prevent leaks.

Additionally, adopting infrastructure as code (IaC) enables version control and auditing, allowing you to ensure that infrastructure changes are consistent, trackable, and secure. Applying those same practices to configurations similarly helps you track configuration changes over time.

Monitoring and logging

Visibility into your CI/CD pipeline is essential for detecting and responding to potential security incidents. Centralized logging provides a single point of reference for all logs generated by different parts of your pipeline, allowing for easier analysis and threat detection. To further enhance security, anomaly detection tools, powered by machine learning and AI, can be used to automatically identify unusual patterns that may indicate a security breach.

Additionally, setting up alerting mechanisms ensures that your security teams are promptly notified of any critical events.

Backup and recovery

As with other areas in your software development life cycle (SDLC) and cybersecurity, backup and recovery is an important aspect of your CI/CD pipeline security. Perform automated and regular backups of your pipeline configurations, code, and artifacts. This will ensure that you can recover quickly in the case of a security incident.

Simply creating backups does not guarantee your ability to recover seamlessly. Your team should also periodically test a CI/CD pipeline restoration from a backup. Put a disaster recovery plan in place. A disaster recovery plan outlines the steps to restore normal operations should the pipeline be compromised. Make sure to review, update, and test this plan occasionally.

Audits and policy reviews

Today’s cyber threats—including those to your CI/CD pipeline—are sophisticated and ever-evolving. Securing your pipeline is not a one-and-done task. You will need to regularly assess your pipeline’s security posture to stay ahead of emerging threats.

Regular audits of your pipeline security will help identify gaps that have arisen because of new threats or environment changes. Along with this, your security team should conduct regular policy reviews to ensure your security policies properly reflect the current state of your pipeline and threat landscape.

Your CI/CD pipeline will grow and change, and so its subsequent security will need to as well.

Benefits of Securing Your CI/CD Pipeline

For any modern enterprise, their applications and systems are under constant threat. However, developers and security teams typically focus on the security of application code during implementation and the security of the infrastructure after deployment. The CI/CD pipeline is a critical piece in the middle, and it presents a surface area of attack that cannot be overlooked.

When you work to secure your pipeline, you ensure your software delivery processes are robust and reliable. This brings a whole host of benefits:

Enhanced security: Reducing vulnerabilities in the pipeline and preventing unauthorized access contribute substantially to your overall security posture.
Improved reliability: Fewer security incidents mean fewer disruptions. Software delivery becomes more consistent, and deployment processes become more efficient.
Reduced risk of breaches: Data breaches can lead to legal repercussions, financial losses, and damaged business reputation. Securing your CI/CD pipeline works to mitigate this risk.
Enhanced compliance: Secure pipelines play an important part in your ability to maintain compliance with industry regulations and standards.
Improved efficiency: As your CI/CD security processes become more streamlined, you reduce the need for manual intervention. This gives your team more room to focus on development while still maintaining confidence in the security of your pipeline processes.

As an all-in-one CNAPP solution for the modern enterprise, Panoptica builds in capabilities to help you keep your CI/CD pipelines secure. From container image and vulnerability scanning to software supply chain security, Panoptica enables DevSecOps teams to strengthen their organization’s security posture across every stage of the SDLC. Learn more about Panoptica by scheduling a live demo or signing up to use it today.