After working in a DevOps environment for over a year, I’ve become an automation acolyte. The future is here and I’ve seen the benefits when you get it right: improved efficiency, better control and fewer errors. However, I’ve also seen the dark side with Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC). Bad things happen because people forget that it’s still code and it should be subject to the same types of security controls you use in the rest of your SDLC.
That means including automated or manual reviews, threat modeling and architectural risk assessments. Remember, you’re not only looking for mistakes in provisioning your infrastructure or opportunities for cost control. Some of this code might introduce vulnerabilities that could be exploited by attackers. Are you storing credentials in the code? Are you calling scripts or homegrown libraries and has that code been reviewed? Do you have version control in place? Are you using open source tools that haven’t been updated recently? Are your security groups overly permissive?
IaC is CODE. Why aren’t you treating it that way?
Postmodern Security 