How can you use CI to improve application security?

1 Choose a CI tool

Choosing a CI tool that suits your application development needs and supports your security goals is the first step. There are various CI tools available, such as Jenkins, Travis CI, CircleCI, and GitHub Actions. Before making a decision, you should compare their features, pricing, compatibility, and documentation. Additionally, you should consider factors such as integration with your code repository, testing framework, and deployment platform; flexibility to customize your workflow; security for storing and accessing credentials; and reliability for handling failures and errors.

2 Configure your CI pipeline

The second step is to configure your CI pipeline, which is a sequence of steps that run automatically every time you push code changes to your repository. Your CI pipeline should include security checks and tests that can identify and prevent vulnerabilities, such as code analysis with tools like SonarQube, CodeQL, or Coverity; code formatting with Prettier, ESLint, or RuboCop; unit testing with Jest, Mocha, or RSpec; integration testing with Postman, Cypress, or Selenium; and security testing with OWASP ZAP, Nmap, or Metasploit. These measures can help you detect and fix common security issues, enforce coding standards and best practices, verify the functionality and logic of your code modules, check the compatibility and interaction of your code modules and external systems, as well as simulate and defend against various types of attacks.

3 Review your CI results

The third step is to review your CI results, which are the outcomes and feedback of your CI pipeline. You should always strive to have a green build, indicating that your code is secure and ready for deployment. If you have a red build, then your code has errors or vulnerabilities that must be addressed quickly. Additionally, you should strive for a high code coverage, indicating that your code has been thoroughly tested and is less likely to contain bugs. Finally, aim for a high code quality, meaning that your code is readable, maintainable, and consistent. If your code quality is low, you should refactor it or apply code formatting. CI results will provide you with useful information and insights to help ensure the quality of your code.

4 Improve your CI process

The fourth step in using CI to improve your application security is to improve your CI process, which is the way you use and optimize your CI tool and pipeline. Your CI process should be agile, efficient, and secure. To ensure this, you should regularly update your CI tool and pipeline with the latest features, patches, and security updates. Additionally, tracking and analyzing your CI performance and metrics can help you identify and resolve bottlenecks, errors, and inefficiencies. Automating your CI tasks and workflows can also save time, reduce human errors, and increase consistency. By using CI to improve your application security, you can benefit from faster development, higher quality, and lower costs. It can help you detect and prevent vulnerabilities, enforce coding standards, and automate security testing.