Infrastructure as Code Misconfiguration

HighCloud SecurityOWASP Infrastructure as Code Security

Security misconfigurations in Infrastructure as Code templates (Terraform, CloudFormation, Kubernetes manifests) deploy resources with overly permissive access, missing encryption, or exposed management interfaces.

Immediate Response

1Identify and remediate critical misconfigurations in deployed infrastructure immediately.
2Restrict overly permissive security groups, IAM policies, or network access controls.
3Rotate any secrets exposed in IaC templates or environment variables.
4Disable public access to management interfaces and administrative endpoints.

All playbooks

1Integrate IaC scanning tools (Checkov, tfsec, KICS) into CI/CD pipelines.
2Implement policy-as-code with OPA or Sentinel to enforce security baselines.
3Remove hardcoded secrets and migrate to vault-based secret injection.
4Apply CIS Benchmarks for Kubernetes, Docker, and cloud provider configurations.

Long-term Prevention

1Establish IaC security review processes and approval gates before deployment.
2Use pre-built, security-hardened IaC modules from trusted sources.
3Implement continuous compliance monitoring for deployed infrastructure.
4Conduct regular IaC security training for development and operations teams.

Attack vectors

Terraform or CloudFormation templates with overly permissive security groups or IAM policies
Kubernetes manifests running containers as root with privileged mode enabled
Helm charts with hardcoded secrets or missing resource limits
Dockerfiles with embedded credentials or running as root user

Indicators of compromise

IaC scanning tools flagging critical misconfigurations in templates
Deployed resources with public access or permissive firewall rules
Containers running with elevated privileges or host network access
Secrets stored in plaintext in configuration files or environment variables

Tooling

CheckovtfsecKICSOPA (Open Policy Agent)Conftest