In today’s digital landscape, the security of software applications has become a pressing concern for organisations across industries. In fact, according to an international survey among developers worldwide, 62% of them indicate that their organisations are actively evaluating use cases or have plans to implement DevSecOps.Implementing a robust, Secure Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) is crucial to address this challenge.
In this post, we will examine the CI/CD security posture and the concept of Software Supply Chain Security (SSCS), its relevance, and the key areas it influences. To successfully implement an effective SSCS strategy, we will review the general steps that any Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) or Chief Information Officer (CIO) should take while also considering the challenges and essential risk areas to address.
Understanding SSCS And Its Importance
SSCS could be explained as integrating security practices, principles, and controls throughout the entire software development lifecycle: it focuses on proactively identifying and addressing vulnerabilities, minimising risks, and ensuring the development of secure software applications. By implementing SSCS, organisations can protect sensitive data, safeguard against cyber threats, and enhance overall resilience.
What Are The Key Areas Of SSCS?
- Full visibility in the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC): It is crucial to maintain a comprehensive inventory, which includes repositories, components (including open source libraries), pipelines, tools, and teams involved in the SDLC. Organizations can identify potential threats by having a clear understanding of all these elements.
- Risks and Threats Management: Establishing processes for rapid identification, tracking, and patching of ongoing threats that could be discovered throughout CI/CD pipelines.
- Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) and Pipeline Bill of Materials (PBOM): While an SBOM represents a fixed catalogue of the software products and components used, a pipeline bill of materials (PBOM) captures a detailed record of all changes and actions taken during the software development lifecycle. This comprehensive lineage tracking allows organisations to trace back any modifications, assess their impact on security, establish accountability for potential vulnerabilities or compliance gaps, and audit their software providers.
- Compliance and security frameworks: The concept of Software Supply Chain Security (SSCS) is often closely associated with the implementation of specific security regulations and frameworks that protect software development, its deployment, and continuous integration. The application of these security frameworks must also extend to all the tools, processes, and teams that are part of the Software Development Life Cycle.
Why Implementing SSCS Effectively Could Be Challenging?
- Resource Constraints: Usually, there are resource limitations, including budgetary constraints and the availability of skilled security professionals. For that reason, sometimes companies must rely on existing staff members who have limited expertise in this area and are focused on delivering new releases and value to their customers.
- Management of additional tools: Developers use multiple tools while developing and integrating new projects, and implementing SSCS strategies often involves using additional ones. Therefore, it may require a particular learning time and modifications to the development process, infrastructure and deployment pipelines. For example, each new tool requires an analysis of the alerts to reduce false positives in order to improve the accuracy and reliability of the security and control system.
- Integration with existing Processes: it should seamlessly integrate with existing development methodologies, such as Agile or DevOps. It must be combined with everyday workflows and procedures, introducing minimal delays and additional work. This integration must be fast and should have a short time-to-market.
Critical Risks Areas To Address
- Weak Authentication and Authorization Mechanisms: Strengthening user authentication, access controls, and user management systems. If this specific aspect is not strengthened, there is a higher probability of unauthorized access that could compromise key software components, source code, build systems, or deployment infrastructure. The impact on the company could result in reputational loss and potential legal liabilities, as well as the loss of intellectual property or the possibility of insider threats from employees or contractors who could compromise the development process.
- Potential Malware injection via tools: During the build process, attackers commonly try introducing malicious code into the software by intercepting build tools or modifying the CI/CD workflows used to build the software releases. These types of attacks result in a compromised integrity of software and lead to unintended functionality or even data breaches. So the company could have to face severe financial and reputational costs.
- Hardcoded secrets: Passwords, API keys, or other authentication credentials sometimes are embedded directly into the code. Knowing this, If an attacker gains unauthorized access to the codebase or an application, they can easily extract and misuse these secrets to gain unauthorized access to sensitive systems, data, or resources. This can lead to data breaches, unauthorized transactions, or malicious activities.
- IAC flaws – Lack of Secure Configuration Management: Addressing software, servers, and infrastructure misconfigurations is fundamental. Errors in IaC (Infrastructure as Code) templates can lead to security threats across the entire cloud native application stack. For example, IaC scripts may involve communication between infrastructure components or external services. For example, if this communication is not properly encrypted, it can expose sensitive data to interception or tampering. An SSCS strategy can mandate using secure protocols, such as TLS/SSL, for all communication channels within the infrastructure, ensuring that data remains confidential and protected from unauthorized access.
How to kick – start your SSCS strategy:
Step 1. Define SSCS Objectives:
Clearly articulate the goals and objectives of your SSCS strategy, aligning them with your organization’s overall security policy. This policy should be tailored to the company’s characteristics and will assist the company in enhancing efficiency and streamlining its operations.
Step 2. Develop
SSCS Policies
and Guidelines:
Create comprehensive policies and guidelines that outline the specific security requirements, practices, and controls to be followed throughout the software development lifecycle.
These policies could be aligned with several industry standards, including the CIS Software Supply Chain Security Benchmark, OWASP Software Component Verification Standard, OpenSSF FLOSS, OpenSSF Scorecard, and ESF Securing the Software Supply Chain DEV.
Step 3. Conduct a
Risk Assessment:
Identify and assess potential security risks and vulnerabilities within your software development processes, applications, and infrastructure. Prioritise risks based on their potential impact and likelihood.
Step 4. Implement Continuous compliance:
Tools like Xygeni ensure that the software infrastructure, applications, and systems comply with the relevant security policies, standards, and regulations.
Xygeni work by continuously monitoring delivery systems and tools involved in the software development lifecycle (SDLC) and delivery pipelines. When necessary, Xygeni suggests prioritized corrective actions to be taken.
Step 5. Manage
issue levels:
Resolving all detected issues, such as hardcoded secrets, misconfigurations, malware, etc., requires a management plan that integrates into the DevOps process.
Therefore, it is essential to integrate their management with corporate ticketing tools to facilitate their resolution straightforwardly.
Step 6. Monitor and Improve:
It is important to monitor overall security throughout the entire SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle) and have feedback mechanisms in place to identify potential security gaps, track compliance, and continuously improve your SSCS strategy.
Step 7. Foster a Security Culture:
Promote a security-conscious culture within your organization by creating awareness, rewarding good security practices, and encouraging collaboration between development and security teams. Provide SSCS training to developers, testers, and other relevant stakeholders to enhance their understanding of secure coding practices, threat modelling, and security testing techniques.
Step 8. Share Best Practices and Lessons Learned:
Foster knowledge sharing and collaboration within the organization by documenting and sharing best practices, lessons learned from security incidents, and success stories related to SSCS.
Step 9. Regularly Review and Update:
Conduct periodic reviews and assessments of your SSCS strategy to adapt to evolving threats, technology advancements, and changes in business requirements.
Implementing an effective SSCS strategy is vital for organizations seeking to develop secure CI / CD pipelines. By understanding the concept of SSCS and its key areas, CISOs, CIOs, and CTOs can initiate the journey towards a robust and resilient software development lifecycle.
By implementing the specific measures outlined above, organizations can proactively identify and address threats, minimize risks, and ensure the development of secure software applications. This protects sensitive data, safeguards against cyber threats, and enhances customer trust, regulatory compliance, and overall business resilience.
