White Paper: Considerations for Secure IaC under DevSecOps: Twelve Critical Vulnerabilities and Strategic Solutions for Federal Agencies

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) has fundamentally transformed how federal agencies deploy and manage cloud environments, delivering unprecedented speed, scalability, and automation capabilities. However, without robust security practices integrated throughout the development lifecycle, IaC can introduce significant vulnerabilities that compromise sensitive government data and critical systems.

This paper identifies twelve critical security considerations that federal agencies must address to implement secure IaC under DevSecOps practices. These vulnerabilities range from hardcoded secrets and excessive permissions to configuration drift and insecure dependencies. Each represents a significant risk vector that can undermine the security benefits that IaC is designed to provide.