Infrastructure as code (IaC) has gained rapid popularity for its ability to automate the management and provisioning of IT infrastructure by replacing manual processes with machine-readable configuration (definitions) files that contain specifications that are simple to edit, maintain, and distribute.

This approach is especially appealing and efficient when standing up and modifying infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) instances in cloud application environments.

But, like any technology, these gains aren't without some pain. One of the most formidable tasks is dealing with IaC management and security. While it's now incredibly fast and convenient to propagate changes across multiple production environments, errors and vulnerabilities can also spread like wildfire. This includes misconfigurations and incorrect default settings, all of which can potentially expose sensitive data, intellectual property (IP), and trade secrets.

As a result, it's wise to establish a framework — including the right strategy and technology tools — that can identify misconfigurations, fix incorrect values, and automate the sometimes-daunting process of checking IaC.

Cracking the Code on IaC

One of the things that makes infrastructure-as-code so appealing is the ability to automate infrastructure deployment processes as part of the development life cycle. This practice is usually referred to as creating a CI/CD pipeline — continuous development and continuous deployment. Manually provisioning, configuring, and managing systems is a time-consuming and error-prone task. IaC is an essential component for automating these processes. With the click of a button, it's possible to set up, delete, or make widespread changes to an existing environment across multiple cloud platforms using APIs

It's also possible to gain visibility into all these changes. So, if it is necessary to roll back a system to a particular date or configuration, the task is reasonably easy to manage. Because IaC typically has built-in support for things like declarative and imperative language, filters, and rules and settings, it's possible to create a standard deployable configuration file that tells a cloud provider exactly what resource to provision.

Eliminating manual processes doesn't prevent problems. IaC environments remain vulnerable to configuration errors. In many cases, IaC definition files mitigate the risk of introducing security misconfigurations due to human errors such as applying the wrong user access policy or important security settings. However, when human-made mistakes happen, they will affect all resources that are using the same definition files and may impact thousands of resources.

In fact, it's remarkably easy to miss configuration issues in IaC, especially when a large and complex cloud infrastructure is provisioned. And once the problem exists in the production environment it's usually a lot more difficult and time-consuming to fix. As a result, organizations should implement a shift-left approach to IaC security that's designed to fix issues directly when code is written or modified.

Finding the Fix

Addressing the problem involves scanning new IaC files for errors and fixing them before they are released to production, as well as discovering misconfigurations already deployed in cloud environments and modifying the IaC files. This requires following a clearly defined three-step process:

While IaC provides huge advances for deploying and managing today's highly complex cloud and IT environments, it does not address security issues and configuration errors that will inevitably occur. However, with the right processes, procedures, and tools it's possible to automate the detection and remediation of security risk in even the largest IaC deployments.