According to research published by Checkmarx, 51% of developers spend more than 21 hours per week on security tasks, and 28% say they experience development slowdowns because security teams are unable to provide timely support. The solution? Using CI/CD pipelines to automate security checks throughout the software delivery lifecycle as part of an integrated DevSecOps workflow.

In this article, we’ll explain how CI/CD and DevSecOps support each other and then discuss 10 best practices for embedding security processes into your CI/CD pipelines. You'll come away with a deep understanding of how CI/CD and DevSecOps eliminate common threats so that you can deliver safer software faster.

How CI/CD Pipelines Support DevSecOps at Scale

DevSecOps is the practice of integrating security processes into broader software development and operations workflows. Continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines are one of the main components in successful DevSecOps strategies.

CI/CD pipelines let you run security processes continuously whenever code is changed. Pipelines automate the transitions between software delivery lifecycle stages, such as source code development, testing, and deployment, providing an ideal opportunity to bake in proactive security checks.

There are two key benefits to leveraging CI/CD for security automation: Security shifts left, preventing checks from being forgotten or bypassed during busy development sprints. And because code in a failing pipeline is blocked from reaching production, vulnerabilities caught during CI/CD jobs can't impact your live workloads.

Embedding security in CI/CD also helps eliminate manual tasks, reducing the risk of oversights. Plus, you can be certain your security scans always run before code gets deployed, ensuring compliance with internal and regulatory requirements.

The end result? Your applications are secure and resilient by default, meeting the key objectives of a DevSecOps strategy.

DevSecOps Best Practices for CI/CD: Building Safer Software Pipelines

To get the most out of automated security in CI/CD pipelines, follow these best practices:

1. Run SAST and DAST Scans When Code Changes

Static Application Security Testing (SAST) and Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) are two types of scans that find bugs, errors, and vulnerabilities in your code. SAST scans analyze code without running it, whereas DAST scans target real deployments. This allows DAST to find vulnerabilities that only appear at runtime—but the tradeoff is scans typically take longer to complete compared to SAST.

Including SAST and DAST scans in your CI/CD pipelines is one of the main ways to detect security issues introduced by new code changes. SAST should be executed as soon as possible in the development lifecycle to detect code flaws as they emerge, while slower DAST suites could be used prior to merges or as part of your deployment pipeline.

Tools to Know About

Commonly used SAST tools include Snyk and Semgrep; popular DAST solutions include Checkmarx ZAP and GitLab DAST.

2. Scan Your Container Images for Vulnerabilities

Outdated base images, compromised dependencies, and unsafe build configurations can all cause exploitable CVEs in built images. That’s why it’s best practice to scan newly built images within your CI/CD pipeline: Scanning lets you make sure images are safe before they're stored and used. If vulnerabilities are found, you can fail the pipeline, preventing risks from reaching your deployments.

Tools to Know About

Container scanning tools such as Orca, Trivy, and Grype automate the process of finding vulnerabilities: They search container image filesystems for known CVEs and outdated packages. Among these choices, Orca is a fully agentless option that gives you 100% coverage for containers running in CI/CD pipelines, build systems, and Kubernetes clusters.

3. Use Policy-as-Code Tools to Prevent IaC Misconfigurations

Policy as Code (PaC) is the process of defining and enforcing security and compliance policies using code files. PaC tools evaluate inputs such as IaC and CI/CD configs against the rules set in your policy files. For instance, you could write a policy to block Terraform files that configure cloud resources in unsafe ways.

Embedding Policy-as-Code checks into your CI/CD pipeline ensures your policies are met continuously. It simplifies your DevOps governance workflow by decoupling policy configuration from evaluation. You can focus on writing policy files—the PaC tool running in your pipeline will handle decision-making based on the rules you’ve created.

Tools to Know About

Policy-as-Code tools include Open Policy Agent (OPA), HashiCorp Sentinel, and Checkov. The Orca Cloud Security Platform is a stand-out option. It provides a fully managed solution with a comprehensive suite of over 1,100 built-in policies for different use cases. Orca, available as part of RapidScale’s cloud management offering, automates the process of finding and preventing risks in your IaC artifacts.

4. Implement SCA Dependency Scanning to Uncover Hidden Vulnerabilities

Software Composition Analysis (SCA) scans pinpoint nested vulnerabilities in your project's dependency tree. Scans output a Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) that lists the dependencies in your project with their essential metadata. As a result, you get full visibility into your system—and a clear sense of the security threats posed by third-party components. Beyond known vulnerabilities, SCA tools can also flag issues such as outdated dependencies and packages that are incompatible with your project's license.

Tools to Know About

Orca, Trivy, Syft, and OWASP dependency-check are among the leading SCA and SBOM solutions. Orca is the most automated option: Its agentless model allows you to view the composition of the artifacts running in your cloud environments without adding special instrumentation to your CI/CD pipelines.

5. Protect CI/CD Pipelines From Unexpected Inputs and Variables

To keep CI/CD pipelines secure, restrict pipeline inputs so they only accept specific types and values. You should also sanitize and validate inputs within your pipeline to ensure they’re safe to use. If an invalid input is received, the pipeline should be aborted so it doesn’t produce a misconfigured or improperly secured environment.

6. Limit CI/CD Access Using RBAC and Fine-Grained Access Tokens

If an attacker compromises your CI/CD infrastructure, they could modify pipeline configs or access sensitive data like job logs. You can mitigate this risk by ensuring users and access tokens are assigned only the permissions relevant to their role: Least-privilege access prevents lateral movement, containing the impact of any breach.

7. Enable Secrets Detection to Prevent Credential Leaks

Hardcoded secrets such as API keys and access tokens are a common cause of data breaches. Including a secrets detection job in your CI/CD pipeline allows you to find and remove sensitive credentials as soon as they're committed, preventing a leak outside your organization.

Tools to Know About

GitGuardian and Gitleaks are two well-known tools that can uncover many different types of secrets.

8. Prefer Pull-Based GitOps Deployment Methods

CI/CD pipelines can ship changes to production using either push- or pull-based methods. In push-based workflows, conventional CI/CD tools like GitHub Actions or GitLab CI/CD run commands like kubectl apply or terraform apply to update your live environments. Unfortunately, this poses a security threat: CI/CD pipelines need privileged credentials to push to production. As a result, a compromised pipeline could let attackers access your live environments using those stored credentials.

Pull-based CI/CD addresses this problem by repositioning CI/CD services as agents within your live environments. Agents periodically check code repositories and image registries for updates, then automatically "pull" the changes to create a new deployment.

Tools to Know About

Argo CD and Flux CD are Kubernetes tools that keep the apps in your cluster synced with manifest files and Helm Charts defined in Git repositories.

9. Utilize Fuzz Testing to Find More Real-World Vulnerabilities

Fuzz testing is a software testing strategy that involves intentionally sending invalid inputs to find and exploit hidden errors and vulnerabilities. For instance, fuzz testing could reveal a buffer overflow vulnerability that exposes sensitive information when users enter an unexpectedly long search query. Including fuzz testing in your CI/CD pipelines enables you to resolve edge-case vulnerabilities that you wouldn't otherwise know about until they're observed in production.

Tools to Know About

Popular fuzzing tools include Google's OSS-Fuzz and Code Intelligence's CI Fuzz.

10. Integrate CSPM and CDR Platforms to Pinpoint New Threats

Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) and Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) platforms automate how you monitor for live cloud risks. CSPM is the high-level process of detecting and resolving potential threats, whereas CDR focuses on triaging emerging vulnerabilities and anomalous activity in real time. CSPM and CDR work independently of CI/CD, but modern platforms are most effective when they're integrated with your CI/CD system.

Tools to Know About

Orca Security is a powerful CSPM platform that lets you continuously monitor for cloud misconfigurations, policy violations, and compliance breaches. It offers deep real-time insights into your cloud workflows by consolidating data from across the software delivery lifecycle. RapidScale’s partnership with Orca makes it easy to leverage Orca’s capabilities as part of a fully managed service.

Embed Security into CI/CD for Safer Software Delivery at Scale

Embedding DevSecOps tools and processes into CI/CD pipelines lets you continually enforce security requirements throughout the software delivery lifecycle. This way, you can find and fix threats sooner, before they impact production environments.

At RapidScale, we take the complexity out of security. Ready to investigate how DevSecOps solutions can secure your cloud operations? Send our team a message today to learn how we can help you build a cloud security roadmap that scales with your operations.