The Automated Secure Application Deployment control from the Cloud Security Alliance Cloud Controls Matrix provides guidance on establishing strategies and capabilities to deploy applications in a secure, standardized, and compliant manner, with automation wherever possible. The goal is to ensure applications are deployed consistently and securely across environments.

Where did this come from?

This control comes from the CSA Cloud Controls Matrix v4.0.10 released on 2023-09-26. You can download the full Cloud Controls Matrix here.

The CSA CCM provides a controls framework for cloud computing. It is aligned with industry-accepted security standards, regulations, and control frameworks such as the ISO/IEC 27001/27002, ISACA COBIT, PCI DSS, NIST SP 800-53, HIPAA, and others.

Who should care?

This control is relevant for:

• Application developers looking to improve the security and consistency of application deployments
• DevOps engineers responsible for automating application deployment pipelines
• Security teams that need to ensure apps adhere to security policies and standards
• Compliance officers verifying that regulated apps are deployed in a compliant manner
• IT operations staff that deploy and manage applications in production

What is the risk?

Insecure or inconsistent application deployment practices can lead to several risks:

• Deployment of vulnerable application versions leading to data breaches
• Inconsistent security controls across application instances and environments
• Non-compliance with regulatory requirements like PCI DSS, HIPAA, GDPR etc.
• Deployment errors causing application downtime impacting customers and revenue
• Malicious code injection via compromised deployment pipelines
• Unauthorized access to sensitive data via misconfigured application settings

This control helps manage those risks by establishing secure, repeatable deployment practices. However, it is not a silver bullet. Vulnerabilities can still be introduced via insecure application code. Other security controls are still required.

What's the care factor?

For any organization developing and deploying its own applications, especially in regulated industries, secure application deployment should be considered a high priority. The risks of insecure deployments are too high to ignore.

While implementing this control requires upfront effort, it pays off in terms of reduced risk, increased agility, and lower chance of security incidents and audit findings. It's the responsible thing to do.

When is it relevant?

Secure application deployment practices are most relevant when:

• Deploying applications that handle sensitive data like PII, PHI, financial data etc.
• Operating in regulated industries like healthcare, finance, government
• Frequently deploying application changes and updates
• Deploying across multiple environments like dev, test, staging, production
• Using cloud platforms and automated deployment pipelines
• Aiming to accelerate application delivery while maintaining security and compliance

This control is less relevant for deploying simple, low-risk applications that are updated infrequently. The costs may outweigh the benefits in those cases.

What are the trade-offs?

Implementing secure application deployment does incur costs and trade-offs:

• Increased time spent defining security requirements and integrating with pipelines
• Reduced agility and speed of deployments due to additional security checks
• Increased compute costs for running security scans and tests in the pipeline
• Productivity hit for developers to learn and adhere to new secure practices
• Friction between security and development teams on how stringent policies should be

However, most would argue that the long-term benefits of reduced risk and consistent security across environments is worth the effort. It's about striking the right balance.

How to make it happen?

Here's a high-level overview of how to implement automated secure application deployment:

1. Define security requirements and policies for application deployments based on industry standards, regulations, and the organization's risk tolerance. This includes things like:
   • Required security testing and scans (SAST, DAST, SCA, container scanning, etc)
   • Approved deployment tools and platforms
   • Access control and credential management for deployment pipelines
   • Logging and auditing requirements for deployments
2. Assign roles & responsibilities between teams:
   • Security teams define policies and monitor compliance
   • App developers integrate security tools into the pipeline and fix issues
   • DevOps engineers build and maintain the deployment automation
   • IT ops manages provisioning and access to deployment infrastructure
3. Integrate security into the CI/CD pipeline. Common steps:
   • Secrets management: Securely manage and inject secrets like API keys and DB passwords. Use a secrets manager like HashiCorp Vault or AWS Secrets Manager.
   • SAST/DAST: Scan app code and running app for security flaws. Tools like SonarQube, Veracode, Checkmarx. Fail pipeline if critical vulns found.
   • Dependency scanning: Scan app dependencies/libraries for known vulns. Tools like OWASP Dependency Check, Snyk. Fail if critical vulns found.
   • Container scanning: Scan container images for OS vulns and misconfigs. Tools like Anchore, Aqua, Prisma Cloud.
   • Compliance checks: Verify deployments meet regulatory requirements like PCI or HIPAA. Can use custom scripts and queries.
   • Approvals: Require manual sign-off from security/compliance teams for production deployments.
4. Implement logging and monitoring
   • Log all deployment activities to a central SIEM or audit trail
   • Alert on any unauthorized or suspicious deployment behavior
   • Monitor key metrics on deployment frequency, lead time, failure rates, rollback times etc.
5. Continuously review and improve
   • Periodically review deployment security policies and procedures with stakeholders
   • Incorporate feedback from dev teams on improving pipeline UX
   • Update tools and approaches as new technologies and threats emerge

What are some gotchas?

Here are a few potential challenges and pitfalls to watch out for:

• Securing secrets used in pipelines. Leaked credentials can allow attackers to hijack deployments. Restrict access and rotate secrets frequently. Use AWS KMS or Azure Key Vault where possible.
• Overwhelming devs with too many security scans and gates. Try to minimize friction and automate scans where feasible. Provide actionable output from security tools.
• Deployment tools and platforms each have their own learning curve and gotchas. For example, Kubernetes RBAC misconfiguration can open security holes. Thoroughly test and harden pipelines.
• Configuration drift between environments. Put guardrails in place to limit drift. Use infrastructure-as-code for consistent deployments.
• Managing permissions and access controls across deployment pipeline. Use least privilege model. Devs should have read/write on CI but read-only on CD.

What are the alternatives?

Some alternatives and complements to hardening application deployment:

• Manually reviewing code and configurations for security issues. Not scalable but still important to incorporate human expertise.
• Using managed PaaS platforms like AWS Elastic Beanstalk or Azure App Service that handle many security configurations out-of-the-box. Good for simpler apps.
• Implementing a web application firewall (WAF) in front of apps to filter malicious traffic. Doesn't stop vulnerable code from being deployed but does add a layer of defense.
• Adopting serverless architectures that minimize the deployment surface area and security responsibilities. May require significant app refactoring.

Explore further

• OWASP Application Security Verification Standard - Detailed list of security requirements to consider in the SDLC
• CSA DevSecOps Working Group - Whitepapers and tools for integrating security into DevOps
• AWS DevSecOps - Resources for automating security in AWS deployment pipelines
• CIS Software Supply Chain Security Guide - Related guidance on securing application deployment including evaluating opensource dependencies

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