IaC (Infrastructure as Code) is an important DevOps practice for automating and streamlining the provisioning and resources. Given its importance in accelerating the SDLC, IaC security is also a critical component, preventing vulnerabilities and misconfigurations that could result in insecure deployments. In this comprehensive guide, we take you all the way from the basics of IaC to understanding the principles of IaC security, who is responsible, how to gain relevant knowledge and best practices and tools to ensure repeatable and secure deployments.
IaC security is the practice of scanning IaC files to ensure secure cloud infrastructure and application configurations. This helps prevent misconfigurations and other vulnerabilities.
What is Infrastructure as Code (IaC)?
Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is a key DevOps practice of managing and provisioning computing infrastructure and cloud resources, through editable and machine-readable scripts and configuration files. Based on this information, IaC tools can automatically create, delete, manage, provision, or update infrastructure resources. IaC replaces manual processes and physical hardware configuration.
The IaC approach allows for consistent, automated, accelerated and repeatable maintenance, testing and deployment of infrastructure components. These include servers, networks, databases, operating systems and applications. IaC also allows shifting left security into the scripting process, so issues can be addressed before deployment. Common IaC tools include Terraform, OpenTofu, Puppet, Chef, Pulumi, env0 and Ansible. Tools for securing IaC templates include Checkmarx.
Declarative IaC vs Imperative IaC
There are two main types of IaC approaches, declarative IaC and imperative IaC. Each approach answers a different use case:
- Declarative IaC – In this approach, DevOps specify the desired state of infrastructure without detailing the steps to achieve that state. The IaC tool is responsible for figuring out how to reach that state. This allows for simplicity and predictable, stable deployments.
- Imperative IaC – In this approach, DevOps define a sequence of commands that the system will follow to reach the desired state. This approach is more about the “how” than the “what
The choice between the two often depends on the specific needs of the project, the team’s expertise and the existing infrastructure. Declarative IaC is generally easier to maintain and scale, making it a favorite for cloud-native applications. On the other hand, imperative IaC offers more control, allowing operators to script complex operations that might be too nuanced or specific for declarative tools. For example, when integrating with existing legacy infrastructure that requires specific procedural steps to configure properly, when transitioning from traditional IT practices or when dealing with highly specific, complex deployment scenarios. However, this approach is more cumbersome at scale. In practice, many teams use a hybrid approach, depending on their use case.
Infrastructure as Code (IaC) vs. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) are DevOps practices that are confused. However, they serve different purposes and operate at different levels of abstraction. Here’s a comparison between the two:
As explained above, IaC is a practice that involves managing and provisioning computing infrastructure through machine-readable scripts and configuration files. By using scripts or configuration files to define the desired state of infrastructure, environments and infrastructure can be versioned and automated. This improves the setup, configuration, and management of infrastructure, making it consistent, repeatable and scalable.
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), on the other hand, is a cloud computing service model that provides virtualized computing resources over the internet. It offers infrastructure components such as virtual machines, storage, and networking on a pay-as-you-go basis. This means users can rent virtualized hardware and deploy their applications without needing to manage physical servers. Rather, providers like AWS, Azure and GCP do it for them. This enables flexibility, cost efficiency and reduced overhead.
Key Benefits of Infrastructure as Code
Infrastructure as Code (IaC) transforms how organizations deploy and manage their IT infrastructure thank to the following benefits:
- Speed and Agility – IaC enables rapid provisioning of environments through automation, drastically reducing the time required to deploy new applications or updates. IaC can even be integrated into CI/CD pipelines, further accelerating the process. This agility accelerates the SDLC, allowing businesses to respond more quickly to market changes and customer demands.
- Consistency and Standardization – IaC ensures that every deployment is consistent, regardless of who is executing the deployment or where it is being deployed. This eliminates variability between environments.
- Scalability and Flexibility – IaC’s speed and standardization make it easy to scale infrastructure up or down, adapting to organizational needs.
- Cost Efficiency – Automating the infrastructure provisioning process minimizes the need for manual intervention, reducing labor costs and accelerating time-to-market, Additionally, IaC can optimize resource usage by dynamically allocating and deallocating resources based on demand, leading to more efficient use of DevOps budgets.
- Error Reduction – Manual processes are prone to errors, but IaC minimizes these risks by automating setups and configurations. This automation ensures that deployments are done correctly every time, reducing the likelihood of failures.
- Improved Disaster Recovery – With IaC, infrastructure configurations can be versioned and stored as code. In the event of a disaster, infrastructure can be quickly recreated in another location using the same code, reducing downtime and accelerating recovery processes.
- Enhanced Security and Compliance – IaC allows security configurations to be embedded directly into the code, ensuring that security practices are automatically enforced every time the infrastructure is deployed. It also facilitates compliance by maintaining consistent configurations that adhere to regulatory standards.
- Version Control – Storing infrastructure as code in version control systems allows teams to keep detailed records of changes, who made them, and why. This is helpful for visibility, auditing, meeting compliance requirements and maintaining knowledge internally.
- Optimized Engineering Management – IaC can be used by engineers of various levels of expertise, freeing up more experienced DevOps for more strategic or creative tasks.
How Is IaC Applied to CI/CD?
CI/CD pipelines streamline and automate the setup and maintenance of infrastructure as code. Here are a few examples of how:
- The CI/CD pipeline itself can be defined using IaC tools. This allows version control and reproducibility of the pipeline structure.
- IaC tools like Terraform, CloudFormation, OpenTofu, env0, Ansible, Chef, Puppet, or Pulumi can be integrated within the pipeline to provision, configure and manage the infrastructure needed for testing and deployment environments.
- Infrastructure tests can be written and executed as part of the pipeline.
- IaC security checks and management can be integrated into the pipeline through DevSecOps practices.
What are the Principles of IaC Security?
How to secure infrastructure as code (IaC)? IaC security is the practice of scanning IaC files to ensure secure cloud infrastructure and application configurations. This helps prevent misconfigurations or other vulnerabilities, like Secrets mismanagement, before they go live, protecting the enterprise from downtime, data breaches and other security risks.
There are 3 main IaC security principles:
- Real-time feedback on scanning, to enable quick remediation
- Prioritizing risk and integrating alerts into the developer workflow to ensure urgent issues get addresses
- Adhering to regulatory requirements by remediating IaC security gaps
These are IaC tools – must-have features.
Who is Responsible for IaC Security?
A few stakeholders are responsible for IaC security, ensuring that IaC practices are secure and effective. Here’s a breakdown:
- AppSec Teams – AppSec teams are responsible for securing software code. This includes ensuring IaC security scanning is integrated early in the development lifecycle and prioritized for remediation. IaC security helps detect misconfigurations and vulnerabilities before they become security incidents, ensuring secure and resistant software deployment.
- DevOps Engineers – DevOps are responsible for IaC, and IaC security is a component of IaC. This includes writing and maintaining IaC scripts with security best practices in mind, ensuring configurations are secure and incorporating security scanning into the CI/CD pipeline.
- Management and Leadership – Security will be as successful as leadership allows them to be. This includes promoting a culture that prioritizes security across all teams involved in IaC, providing the necessary resources and tools to implement secure IaC practices and taking part in assessing and managing risks associated with IaC and making informed decisions to mitigate them.
Additional stakeholders, like system admins, cloud admins, network admins, SREs and platform engineers are involved in IaC. Therefore, it is recommended they also take part in securing it and making themselves familiar with the infrastructure as code checklist and best practices.
How to Keep IaC Security Knowledge Updated
Here are some strategies and resources that can help you stay informed and protect your infrastructure effectively:
- Enroll in courses offered by reputable organizations or platforms like Coursera, Udemy, or Pluralsight. Look for courses specifically focused on secure coding practices, cloud security and IaC.
- Participate in live workshops and webinars that focus on the latest IaC tools and security practices. These sessions often provide insights into new vulnerabilities and how to mitigate them.
- Attend industry conferences like AWS re:Invent, Microsoft Ignite, Google Cloud Next, or DevOps-specific events like DevOps Days. These conferences often have sessions dedicated to security best practices and the latest trends in IaC.
- Join communities on platforms like Reddit, Stack Overflow, or specialized forums on Reddit or Discord. These platforms allow you to exchange knowledge about security challenges and solutions.
- Subscribe to blogs and newsletters from trusted security companies like Checkmarx or news and content sites like CSO Online or The Hacker News.
- Follow IaC tool updates and security advisories. These vendors often publish best practices and security guidelines.
- Organize regular sessions within your organization to share knowledge about recent security incidents, new vulnerabilities and best practices in IaC security.
- Contribute to open-source projects related to IaC to understand aspects of IaC security.
What are Common IaC Security Analysis Limitations and Challenges?
IaC security analysis helps maintain a secure and compliant infrastructure. However, several limitations and challenges can complicate this process. Here are some common issues:
- Complexity and Scale – Modern infrastructures can be highly complex and dynamic, involving numerous interconnected and dependent components across multiple environments. Security analysis tools might struggle to handle such complexity and changes efficiently, potentially missing vulnerabilities or misconfigurations.
- False Positives and Negatives – Security analysis tools can generate false positives (incorrectly flagging secure configurations as vulnerabilities) and false negatives (failing to identify actual vulnerabilities). High rates of false negatives leave security gaps unaddressed, making them a critical part of any security strategy.
- Lack of Standardization – There is no universal standard for IaC practices, leading to variations in how different organizations implement and secure their IaC. This lack of standardization can make it difficult to apply consistent security analysis across different environments and projects.
- Insufficient Expertise – Effective IaC security analysis requires specialized knowledge and expertise in both security and infrastructure management. Many organizations lack the necessary expertise to fully leverage IaC security tools and best practices, leading to gaps in their security posture.
Infrastructure as Code – 12 Security Best Practices for 2024
To properly secure your IaC templates and prevent misconfigurations and vulnerabilities, it’s recommended to follow these infrastructure as code best practices:
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Shift Left Security – Integrate security early in the development process by embedding security checks within the CI/CD pipeline and into the developer workflow. By doing so, you can identify and mitigate vulnerabilities at the earliest stages, reducing the risk of security breaches in production environments.
For example, you can use tools like Checkmarx to scan your IaC templates during the development cycle.
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Adopt the Principle of Least Privilege – Ensure that your IaC scripts only grant the minimum necessary permissions required for resources to function. Avoid using overly permissive roles or policies that could be exploited by malicious actors.
For example, implement fine-grained IAM policies in AWS CloudFormation templates to restrict access to specific actions and resources.
- Prioritize Critical Findings – Focus on high-priority vulnerabilities for prompt remediation. Integrate into workflows to effectively manage and address these risks.
- Implement Developer Alerts – Use plugins for real-time alerts within development environments, across all files and projects, to prevent developer workflow disruption and allow remediation.
- Use Trusted Modules and Templates – Avoid copying and pasting code snippets from unverified sources, as they may contain security vulnerabilities. Prioritize well-vetted, community-approved modules and templates from reputable sources. For example, Terraform Registry is a good source of modules that have been reviewed and approved by the community.
- Version Control and Code Review – Store all IaC scripts in a version control system like Git. Implement a robust code review process to ensure that all changes are reviewed by multiple team members, which can help catch security flaws and misconfigurations before they are merged.
- Automate Security Testing – Incorporate automated security testing tools within your CI/CD pipelines. These tools can continuously monitor for known vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and policy violations.
- Implement Secrets Management – Avoid hardcoding sensitive information, such as API keys, passwords, and access tokens, directly into your IaC scripts. Use a secrets management tool to securely store and manage these credentials.
- Enable Logging and Monitoring – Ensure that all IaC deployments are configured with comprehensive logging and monitoring to detect and respond to potential security incidents. This includes enabling audit logs for all changes made to infrastructure resources.
- Enforce Compliance and Governance – Implement policies and frameworks to ensure your IaC deployments adhere to industry standards and compliance requirements. Use policy-as-code tools to automate compliance checks.
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Regularly Update and Patch – Keep your IaC tools, modules, and dependencies up to date with the latest security patches and updates. Regularly review and update your scripts to incorporate the latest security practices and fixes.
For example, schedule regular reviews and updates for your Terraform modules and ensure you are using the latest version of the Terraform binary.
- Educate and Train Your Team – Invest in continuous education and training for your development and operations teams. Ensure they are aware of the latest security threats, best practices and infrastructure as code tools available for securing IaC. See how in previous section.
How Checkmarx One Provides a Comprehensive Solution for Infrastructure as Code Security
Checkmarx One, the leading AppSec security solution, ensures repeatable and secure deployments by addressing vulnerabilities in application provisioning. Main capabilities include:
- Scanning IaC templates to detect vulnerabilities and misconfigurations.
- Integrating directly into development workflows and CI/CD pipelines.
- Automating ticketing and remediation processes with productivity tools.
- Enforcing custom security rules and build stops for flagged issues.
- Providing real-time developer alerts within IDEs like Visual Studio.
- Helping adhere to compliance and governance standards.
- Offering immediate feedback for vulnerabilities and misconfigurations in IaC files.
- Correlating and prioritizing risks across development stages.
For more detailed information and to see a demo, go here.