Highlights of Threats to Cloud-Native Development and the Need for Comprehensive Application Security
As engineering becomes increasingly fast-paced, dynamic, and influential across organizations, the evolution of Application Security (AppSec) becomes ever more imperative. With the prevalence of agile development methodologies, such as continuous integration and continuous development (CI/CD) pipelines, in modern cloud-native development landscapes, it's crucial to recognize the growing threats and vulnerabilities that come with these technologies.
Growing Threat Landscape
CI/CD pipelines have evolved to become a prime target for cloud threat actors due to their responsibility for critical workflows and access to sensitive information, as well as the oversight they often receive from security teams. This has led to a rapid increase in the magnitude and severity of cloud attacks targeting engineering environments.
Recent incidents have demonstrated that a single unsecure step in a CI/CD pipeline can have a profound impact on an organization. Compromised Git infrastructure, leaked customer secrets, and the use of CI systems to spread malware to a vast number of clients highlight the significant blast radii and potential impact of CI/CD-based attacks.
Need for Comprehensive Application Security
In light of these threats, it's evident that a paradigm shift in the approach to application security for cloud-native apps is necessary. Quick reactions to runtime incidents are insufficient in reducing the application attack surface. Instead, organizations must empower engineers to ship secure applications by default.
Effective AppSec in modern organizations should prioritize maintaining engineering velocity without compromising on risk management.
Architecting an Effective AppSec Program
An effective AppSec program can be segmented into three essential steps:
- Security IN the pipeline (SIP)
- Security OF the pipeline (SOP)
- Security AROUND the pipeline (SAP)
In the context of the complex engineering ecosystem, preserving relationships through a security graph is crucial for deciphering attack pathways throughout the application lifecycle.
Security IN the Pipeline (SIP)
Addressing insecure code is the primary step, requiring continuous mapping of code storage locations, languages, and frameworks used. Evaluation of deployed security tools, such as infrastructure as code (IaC) scanning and secrets scanning, is necessary to ensure accurate risk scores and actionable alerting.
Security OF the Pipeline (SOP)
Protecting against open pathways, vulnerabilities, and malware in production requires implementing posture management of pipeline systems. This extends from source control to artifact and container repositories, necessitating secure configurations to uphold pipeline security.
Security AROUND the Pipeline (SAP)
Securing the production environment by setting up flow control mechanisms and guardrails is crucial to prevent unauthorized modification of cloud resources. This ensures that the established pipeline is not bypassed, enabling organizations to protect against cloud infrastructure drift.
Future of Cloud Application Security
Looking ahead, the focus of security and risk leaders should revolve around rearchitecting AppSec programs to account for the evolving threat landscape. Achieving code-to-cloud observability over the engineering ecosystem will enable security teams to detect, investigate, and respond to risks proactively.
Hardening CI/CD Pipelines is vital, and organizations are encouraged to test their pipeline's security with different attack scenarios to prioritize and address the top CI/CD security risks effectively.
By embracing these principles and best practices, organizations can build scalable AppSec workflows in the cloud, setting the stage for a more secure and resilient cloud-native development environment.
By implementing the SIP, SOP, SAP framework and continuously iterating on security practices, organizations can mitigate the risks presented by the evolving threat landscape in cloud-native development. This blogpost emphasizes the need for comprehensive application security and outlines architectural steps to bolster security infrastructure in the face of heightened risks.