Building Security Testing Pipelines

Building Security Testing Pipelines

Effective security testing pipelines implement defense-in-depth through multiple validation stages. Each stage focuses on different security aspects, from syntax validation through policy compliance to drift detection. Early stages provide rapid feedback on obvious issues, while later stages perform comprehensive analysis. This graduated approach balances thorough security validation with developer productivity.

Pre-commit hooks offer the earliest security feedback by running lightweight checks before code enters version control. These hooks can detect hardcoded secrets, validate basic syntax, and enforce coding standards. While pre-commit checks must be fast to avoid developer frustration, they prevent the most egregious security mistakes from entering the codebase.

# .pre-commit-config.yaml for IaC security
repos:
  - repo: https://github.com/antonbabenko/pre-commit-terraform
    rev: v1.77.0
    hooks:
      - id: terraform_fmt
      - id: terraform_validate
      - id: terraform_tflint
        args:
          - --args=--config=__GIT_WORKING_DIR__/.tflint.hcl
      
  - repo: https://github.com/bridgecrewio/checkov
    rev: 2.5.0
    hooks:
      - id: checkov
        args: [--quiet, --compact, --framework, terraform, --skip-check, CKV_AWS_18]
        
  - repo: https://github.com/Yelp/detect-secrets
    rev: v1.4.0
    hooks:
      - id: detect-secrets
        args: ['--baseline', '.secrets.baseline']
        
  - repo: https://github.com/terraform-docs/terraform-docs
    rev: v0.16.0
    hooks:
      - id: terraform-docs-go
        args: ["markdown", "table", "--output-file", "README.md", "."]

# .tflint.hcl configuration
config {
  module = true
  force = false
}

plugin "aws" {
  enabled = true
  version = "0.21.0"
  source  = "github.com/terraform-linters/tflint-ruleset-aws"
}

rule "terraform_naming_convention" {
  enabled = true
  format  = "snake_case"
}

rule "terraform_documented_outputs" {
  enabled = true
}

rule "terraform_documented_variables" {
  enabled = true
}

# Custom security rules
rule "aws_instance_invalid_type" {
  enabled = true
}

rule "aws_security_group_unrestricted_ingress" {
  enabled = true
}

Continuous Integration stages perform comprehensive security analysis on every code change. These automated pipelines run multiple security tools in parallel, aggregating results for developer review. Static analysis tools examine code structure, policy engines validate compliance, and secret scanners ensure no credentials are exposed.