CI/CD Security Checklist for Businesses in 2024

With the increasing competition, time to market is very critical for businesses, and therefore, to maintain the competitive edge, software development needs to be rapid.  To reduce development cycles and time to market, Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipelines are gradually becoming an ideal choice for businesses. However, more automation means higher risk since security issues can open doors for critical attacks that lead to massive losses and image loss. CI/CD security is not an afterthought, but it is a necessity in any organization that is using automation in the deployment process. It is important to safeguard these pipelines with a CI/CD security checklist to have a safe development process that will enable business growth while at the same time ensuring that information is protected.

Continuous Integration (CI) is a collaborative working model where developers merge changes into a single code base repeatedly and at short intervals. Each integration triggers an automated build, allowing teams to identify and rectify errors much earlier than traditional methods. Continuous Deployment (CD) takes this a step further and automates the entirety of the release process, thus allowing teams to push new features to production swiftly and efficiently. Interestingly, the developers who incorporated CI/CD tools work 15% more effectively than their peers because testing and deployment problems are solved much faster, and overall efficiency is boosted. Altogether, the CI/CD frameworks improve speed, repeatability, and quality in software development.

CI/CD security refers to practices meant to secure each phase of the development process in the pipeline of continuous integration and deployment. A typical CI/CD pipeline comprises automated code tests, builds, and deployments that might introduce potential entry points for unauthorized access or malicious code injections. Over 80% of organizations already practice DevOps, and this number is expected to increase to 94% in the near future. In other words, these practices truly serve their purpose of releasing updates and features more often. With businesses starting to depend even further on automated processes, such pipelines need to be secured from unauthorized access while maintaining codebase integrity.

Effective CI/CD security limits these risks so that the development team can confidently release software, knowing that the security protocols protect their code and data from end to end. In this article, we will delve into:

• CI/CD security: Definition and importance
• 15 Things That Must Be in Your CI CD Security Checklist
• How SentinelOne enhances CI/CD security

By the end of this article, businesses can get a comprehensive understanding of how to implement security measures to fortify their CI/CD pipeline for safe and resilient development.

What is CI/CD Security?

CI/CD security refers to the security measures taken to protect the pipeline of CI/CD. Each pipeline often consists of multiple stages, from commitment to production deployment, and each stage is associated with different security challenges. For example, code repositories need strict access control to avoid unauthorized changes, and build environments should be isolated to prevent contamination. CI/CD security checklists address these challenges by strictly controlling who can access and modify the code and whose modified version can go into production. It automates vulnerability checks in an attempt to find problems before they can make it into production. For instance, automated security scans within a build process would find vulnerabilities in code dependencies and make sure only secure code reaches production.

Why Is CI/CD Security Important?

The importance of CI/CD security cannot be overemphasized when considering the potential associated risks of having an unsecured pipeline. An unsecured CI/CD pipeline will only expand the attack surface, thus allowing attackers to inject malicious code into the production environment, leak sensitive data, or disrupt business operations. As a matter of fact, nearly 45% of data breaches are now cloud-based, and 27% of organizations reported a public cloud security breach—marking a 10% increase compared to the previous year. Securing the CI/CD pipeline protects business-critical assets and customer data while maintaining brand reputation and adherence to industry regulations. In short, implementing security at every stage of the CI/CD pipeline prevents unauthorized access and maintains code integrity, enabling much safer and faster deployments.

15 Things That Must Be in Your CI/CD Security Checklist

A detailed CI/CD security checklist helps businesses protect their CI/CD pipeline and reduce the chances of unauthorized access, data breaches, or malicious code injections. Below are 15 things that must be in your CI/CD security checklist so that your workflow is secure and resilient, enabling secure software delivery efficiently and reliably.

1. Secure Access Controls: Implement effective access control and provide access to the CI/CD pipeline based on the role of any user. Use multi-factor authentication and provide strong password policies to minimize unauthorized access. Consider single sign-on, as it would be convenient in terms of access and logging. This reduces entry points an attacker would employ, as access is afforded only to users who need it. The accesses that users have should periodically undergo review to match their current positions.
2. Environment Isolation: Segregate different environments, including development, staging, and production, to avoid unauthorized movements of code across stages. In other words, by isolating the environment, there is a reduction in the risk involved as the vulnerabilities in the testing environments are not allowed to bubble up into production. Further, make use of network segmentation along with firewall rules to logically and physically segregate each environment from every other. Basically, you are setting limits that will challenge the propagation of vulnerabilities across the pipeline, hence improving its integrity.
3. Version Control Security: Employ a secure source control system and let authentication be enforced to allow access to the repositories. Enforce compulsory code signing to determine the identity of contributors to the code and find unauthorized changes as quickly as possible. Configure your source-code version control system to alert the stakeholders upon suspicion of any change or access anomaly. These controls will ensure source code does not get altered without authorization, hence securing your intellectual property.
4. Automated Vulnerability Scanning: Integrate automated scanning for vulnerabilities in the CI/CD pipeline to identify security vulnerabilities at build time.  SentinelOne Singularity™ platform, SonarQube, and Snyk are some of the tools you can use to scan for publicly known vulnerabilities in code dependencies and libraries, which blocks insecure code from reaching production. Regular scanning also keeps teams informed about new types of vulnerabilities that may arise and prompts quick action. Schedule scans, and set thresholds of vulnerabilities at which the deployment process should be stopped to further reduce the chances of flawed code being sent out.
5. Secrets Management: Store secrets like API keys, passwords, and tokens securely using something like HashiCorp Vault or AWS Secrets Manager. Hardcoding your secrets into your codebase will allow any authorized user to see sensitive information. Employ access policies to ensure that only the ‘need-to-know’ users have the capability of retrieving secrets. Change keys on a regular basis for risk mitigation. By centralizing how secrets are managed, you can secure sensitive data far more effectively and reduce the risk of leakage via compromised credentials.
6. Dependency Management: Regularly audit dependency vulnerabilities using automated tools that notify you when changes occur in third-party libraries. Tools such as Dependable and OWESP Dependency-Check scan open-source libraries integral to your application for known security issues. Whenever possible, utilize only those libraries that are actively maintained and supported to minimize risks even further. Keeping dependencies up-to-date and secure reduces the likelihood of vulnerabilities within your software.
7. Code Review Automation: Employ automated code review tools that check the code for potential security vulnerabilities. These will highlight insecure coding practices, such as weak encryption or improper input validation before the code is merged in. Automation of code reviews saves not only time but also ensures consistency in checks on security. Complement this with manual reviews of critical parts of code and make sure that the most important parts get thoroughly checked to minimize the likelihood of security lapses.
8. Build Integrity Verification: Employ checksum and digital signatures for Build Artifact Integrity Service to ensure that the data has not been tampered with in transit in the continuous integration/continuous deployment process. This will help discover unauthorized modifications early on, well before the compromised code reaches production. Integrity verification at multiple places in the pipeline increases traceability and greater accountability to give you confidence that the builds being deployed are untouched and uncompromised.
9. Runtime Protection: Runtime protection tools monitor applications at runtime while detecting malicious behaviors in real time. Runtime Application Self-Protection (RASP) and other monitoring solutions provide visibility into application behavior, aiding in the identification and blocking of attacks during actual events. This technology is key for protecting applications in production, where speedy detection and response can mean the difference between a contained event and major damage.
10. Comprehensive Logging And Monitoring: Logging for all CI/CD activities must be turned on to log precise details of user interaction, code changes, and deployments. Use analysis through generally available tools like Splunk or ELK Stack to identify anomalies in logs. Besides that, create alerts for patterns that nominate an unusual activity and investigate those instantly. Logging and monitoring give significant insights into incident response, which identifies security incidents to teams as quickly as possible.
11. Automated Scanning with IDS/IDPS: This means implementing automatic vulnerability scanning to catch security risks as early in the build process, preferably within your CI/CD pipeline. With IDPS (Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems)  tools like the Singularity™ platform by SentinelOne, all code dependencies and libraries are scanned for known vulnerabilities, thus preventing in-secure codes from making it to production. Teams are kept abreast of vulnerabilities developing with regular scans and promptly can respond. These measures can be used in combination with scheduling scans and setting thresholds to stop deployment if critical bugs are found, lowering the risk of flawed code being introduced.
12. Data Encryption: Any data that is considered to be sensitive should be encrypted both when it is being transmitted as well as when it is being stored to avoid it falling into the wrong hands, Use proven encryption standards, such as Transport Layer Security (TLS), when in transit, to ensure the security of data throughout its lifecycle in the stages of a CI/CD pipeline. Encrypt data in datasets such as databases, storage systems, and backups. Encryption policies provide an additional protection layer for the valued information and further comply with regulations related to data protection.
13. Regular Security Audits: Regular security audits of the CI/CD pipeline are one of the high-priority features in finding and addressing prospective vulnerabilities. These audits need to consider everything from the overall security posture of an organization, including vulnerability management, access control, and configuration settings, right up to code repositories. Auditing can be done by independent auditors or with assistance from automated tools for a third-party objective review. This documentation of findings must be followed by the actual implementation of recommended improvements.
14. Patch Management: Keep the CI/CD tools and their dependencies updated with the latest security patches. Automate patch management to mitigate known vulnerabilities where possible. Couple patching with a process of staged testing before deployment to production. Effective patch management removes exposure to identified vulnerabilities, giving you a secured pipeline in CI/CD.
15. Backup and Recovery: Automate the backup of the CI/CD environment and code repositories for quick restoration in the event of data loss or corruption. Recovery procedures should be periodically tested for the completeness and usability of backups to minimize downtime in case of an incident. Backups stored in secure, off-premise locations guard against both physical and digital threats. A clearly defined backup and recovery plan ensures operational continuity and resiliency in the case of potential disruptions.

CI/CD Security with SentinelOne

SentinelOne protects CI/CD pipelines against emerging threats with real-time threat response. Teams receive continuous visibility and protection within the Singularity™ Cloud Security platform powered by autonomous AI-driven defenses. This, in turn, enables fast detection of threats before they can materialize at all stages of development and deployment. This solution minimizes risk by providing secure, efficient, and resilient CI/CD pipelines. Some of its features include:

1. Autonomous AI: SentinelOne Singularity™ Cloud Security continuously monitors the CI/CD pipeline in real-time by deploying autonomous AI to monitor suspicious activity throughout build and runtime. In this way, threats can be caught early on, and thus, risks are reduced before it is too late and causes dramatic damage. Taking a proactive stance, it neutralizes threats in a timely manner, thus ensuring continuity for the service of the CI/CD process. SentinelOne Singularity™ offers all tiers of cloud security, thus providing the absolute safety of pipelines without making their performance depend on speed or reliability.
2. Comprehensive Endpoint Protection Everywhere: SentinelOne delivers advanced endpoint protection for public, private, and hybrid cloud environments, protecting every point of the CI/CD pipeline, from build servers to containers. With the support of AI Security Posture Management, the platform continuously keeps its controls fine-tuned, causing the attack surface in the CI/CD environment to be constantly minimized. This is a holistic way to ensure that all endpoints in the pipeline are secure, which means there cannot be any weakness and, therefore, the improved security posture.
3. Lightning-Fast Automated Incident Response: SentinelOne’s solution offers an automated incident response, which is quite critical in such high-velocity CI/CD environments. The solution employs Verified Exploit Paths™ to provide risk ranking; this is done by mapping the risks against potential routes of exploits and ensuring that they are ready to be detected and resolved. Additionally, it offers CSPM in the detection of incorrect configurations and fixes them in real-time, hence creating a secure CI/CD pipeline devoid of minimal vulnerabilities before being exploited.
4. Proactive Configuration and Compliance Management on Cloud: SentinelOne offers cloud configuration vulnerability remediation in its feature set through Infrastructure-as-Code Scanning and Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management. Those components might potentially identify and correct misconfigurations even before reaching production, so one would remain on the safe side due to adherence to industry standards. In an attempt at limiting exposure, SentinelOne automatically activates support for compliance with regard to and management of configurations so as to maintain the integrity of the CI/CD pipeline and protect data appropriately.
5. Better Visibility and Full Forensic Telemetry: With complete forensic telemetry, SentinelOne provides deep visibility into activities within CI/CD and helps organizations identify the root cause of security incidents in detail. Singularity™ Cloud Security unifies External Attack Surface Management (EASM) with secret scanning for identification and mitigation of vulnerabilities across digital assets. This improved visibility enables organizations to monitor the entire CI/CD chain, making development resilient and well-secured.

Conclusion

In conclusion, CI/CD security forms the backbone of modern software development: an environment wherein organizations can rapidly create, test, and deploy secure applications.

With the help of the CI/CD security checklist, any organization can secure its CI/CD pipeline to defend against potential security threats and facilitate smoother, more reliable deployments. Moving forward, there is no opting out of integrating security into CI/CD pipelines since it is a strategic imperative. Properly securing the CI/CD pipeline not only ensures operational resilience but also strengthens customer trust, which is key in today’s competitive landscape.

After reviewing the comprehensive CI/CD security checklist, it is clear that securing the CI/CD pipeline is not that easy, and some organizations may face obstacles. In such circumstances, solutions that utilize AI, such as SentinelOne’s Singularity™ Cloud Security, meet and address the growing need for security in CI/CD environments and to adapt to new threats. For competitive organizations looking to achieve operational resilience and maintain their customer’s trust, the best solution is to implement stringent security measures in the CI/CD pipeline and use SentinelOne’s end-to-end protection.

FAQs

1. What is CI/CD security?

CI/CD security measures involve practices, tools, and processes designed to defend the continuous integration/continuous deployment pipeline from a cyber security attack. This security encompasses code repositories, build environments, and deployment stages, which guarantee the safety of an application’s development and the implemented deployment. Emphasizing CI/CD security enables efforts to put measures for avoiding unauthorized access, data breaches, and the sowing of malicious code in boarding environments.

2. Why is securing a CI/CD pipeline important?

Protecting the CI/CD pipeline is important because of the various cyber risks to business, which may lead to technology disruption, but also because of the risks posed by the unauthorized access, code. The damage of a compromised pipeline translates to potentially deploying applications that are vulnerable to exposure of sensitive data that compromise system integrity. It is also important to protect the assets that are related to the pipeline in a bid to secure operational steadiness and integrity for the customers and other stakeholders.

3. What are the best practices for securing source code in CI/CD?

To secure source code in CI/CD, certain best practices have to be adopted, which include ensuring that there is strict version control, exposing code to review at certain stages, and employing mechanisms that reduce changes to the code, limiting to those that are absolutely necessary. Also, the importance of using encryption of such sensitive information and secrets combined with automated scanning services for vulnerabilities helps identify cyber threats to be addressed automatically.