CI/CD Security Checklist: Six Best Practices to Proactively Address CI/CD Pipeline Weaknesses

CI/CD pipelines play a critical role in cloud-native software development, serving as the foundation in which developers store, compile, and deploy code. But CI/CD pipelines are frequently the weakest point in the software supply chain, and bad actors have taken note. CI/CD pipeline weaknesses provide an opportunity for bad actors to inject malicious code and leak sensitive data, thereby corrupting both the CI/CD pipeline and the software supply chain.

CI/CD security is often overlooked, and pipelines require special care in how they are configured and how user behavior is controlled. However, with the right approach, it’s possible to proactively address CI/CD security and harden your pipelines over time. Below are six tactical rules a CI/CD security checklist for proactively addressing CI/CD pipeline weaknesses so you can prevent issues like pipeline poisoning, secrets exfiltration, and dependency chain abuse.