Build Script Parsing for CI/CD Security Policy Enforcement
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Solution Overview
Problem
CI/CD pipelines lack adequate security measures, making them vulnerable to malicious attacks that can spread through the software supply chain, compromising systems and data across networks.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a system that parses build scripts to identify expected build actions, constructs a representation of these actions, and generates a security policy to permit or deny specific actions, thereby enforcing security policies on build machines to prevent malicious activity.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If security measures are added to CI/CD pipelines, then security reliability is improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary analysis of build scripts to identify expected build actions before execution. By constructing a representation of expected actions and generating security policies in advance, the system establishes security controls proactively rather than reactively, improving security reliability while managing complexity through upfront preparation
Solution Approach 2:
The system introduces an intermediary security policy layer between the build script and build machine execution. This intermediary component translates build script instructions into security policies that mediate resource access and action permissions, improving security without requiring direct modification of the build pipeline itself
2Reliability
If automated security monitoring is implemented, then security enforcement capability is improved, but processing time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary parsing of build scripts and construction of expected actions representations before build execution. By preparing security policies and expected actions in advance, the system minimizes processing time during actual build execution while maintaining strong security enforcement capability
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates a representation (copy) of the expected build actions from the build script without executing the actual build process. This copying approach allows security analysis to proceed independently and in parallel, reducing the time penalty of security monitoring while maintaining enforcement capability
Data Source
AI summary
Disclosed embodiments relate to systems and methods for enforcing security policies in dynamic development pipelines. Techniques include accessing a build script, including a set of instructions for a software build process, parsing the build script to identify a set of scripted build instructions, determining a set of expected build actions based on the scripted build instructions, and constructing a representation of the set of expected build actions. The techniques may further include automatically generating a security policy based on the representation of the set of expected build actions, monitoring a build machine running the build script, and enforcing the security policy on the build machine.