How to ensure Security in IaC?
Below are the steps to ensure security in Infrastructure as Code:
Automated IaC Governance
The policies and configuration checks should be automated to save time and to avoid manual evaluation and human error. For a single IaC template/script there may be more than 100 policies to be checked. Finding misconfigurations and policy violations manually will leave security gaps and weaken the security posture.
Governed in Code, secured in Code
The most important key to implement infrastructure security as Code is to implement the right tool to identify the issues with IaC templates/scripts and use the same approach to fix them .i.e. fixes and updates must also be applied through Code. The aim of infrastructure security as Code should be to automate the governing process of the entire infrastructure with the help of Code by setting policies and configuration checks to govern the infrastructure workflow.
Continuous Workflow
Its security should be embedded into the tools and day-to-day processes. The most common method to maintain continuous workflow with infrastructure as Code will be to setup CI/CD pipelines with policies and configuration checks to validate each pull request and commit. It will help you to easily identify new violations and new misconfigurations can be prevented which will eventually help you to avoid cloud drift.
IaC Security Benefits
These are the three major benefits of its security-
- Continuous Compliance
- Continuous Risk Assessment and Threat Modeling
- Data Encryption as a Requirement
- Automated Monitoring and Alerts
Continuous Compliance
Achieving continuous compliance while using it is a fundamental requirement. When security policies and configuration checks are written in Code, putting security compliance controls in place becomes much easier and security processes become more streamlined. Automating these configuration checks and policy requirements by using CI/CD pipelines makes the security flow even more streamlined. By using this approach, continuous compliance can be achieved with very minimal manual intervention.
Continuous Risk Assessment and Threat Modeling
Continuous Risk Assessment and Threat Modeling help to continuously assess security loopholes with different levels of risk and any required preventive action can be taken immediately. It eventually helps to minimize the attack surface and discover the possible attack vectors. Continuous Risk Assessment and Threat Modeling should cover all the environmental components and this entire process must be automated for optimal risk assessment and threat modeling. Infrastructure Security as Code helps to closely evaluate the public-facing features or services and limit the exposure to malicious and unauthorized access and cyberattacks.
Data Encryption as a Requirement
Data encryption is one of the key requirements that can be achieved with Infrastructure Security as Code. Business critical data and Personal Identifiable Information (PII) must be encrypted by default. Data in transmit must also be encrypted as it is vulnerable to attacks and sniffing. Infrastructure Security as Code helps to ensure that data encryption is enabled by default on data in rest and data in transit uses encryption with secure protocols and robust cryptographic algorithms.
Automated Monitoring and Alerts
In any environment, monitoring and alerts play a vital role. One of the major requirements that must be fulfilled in complex environments is automated monitoring and alerting. Automated monitoring and alerting not only helps to identify attacks and weaknesses but also helps to identify threats in their early stages. Deploying Infrastructure Security as Code in an environment helps to monitor critical infrastructure and generate near real-time alerts based on evaluation frequency which can be hourly, daily, or weekly, and makes the entire workflow more efficient and secure.
Conclusion
Infrastructure Security as Code is a new concept, and the biggest challenge that organizations face while adopting and implementing Infrastructure Security as Code is the proper integration and workflow development. The main reason behind this issue is that the security policies and configuration checks have to be written as Code which isn't straightforward in complex and interconnected environments. There are security gaps and adopting Infrastructure Security as Code takes planning, time, and collaboration between different teams and is not as simple as it seems. These gaps lead to confusion, which affects the organization's security posture. The only thing that organizations need to focus is correctly determining how and where the resources need to be provisioned, governed and secured.
If deployed efficiently and effectively, Infrastructure Security as Code will eventually help you determine and find issues before they're deployed, help you implement continuous compliance, and automate your monitoring and alerting process for all existing and new resources.
Read Next
- Learn about Infrastructure as Code Principles and IaC Adoption
- Know How to Implement Infrastructure as Code in CI/CD Pipeline?