How to secure your CI/CD pipeline with SGNL

Securing your CI/CD pipeline is more than just preventing unauthorized access. It’s about ensuring that every code change follows a well-defined, real-time security policy without slowing down development. SGNL integrates seamlessly with your DevOps workflows to enforce access controls and security policies at key points, whether in the CI/CD provider itself (e.g., GitHub, GitLab) or within the individual code repositories.

Controlling access to CI/CD providers

The first layer of security in a CI/CD pipeline starts with the platform itself. Platforms like GitHub and GitLab provide various permission models, allowing organizations to manage access at multiple levels: enterprise, organization, team, and repository. The challenge is ensuring that these permissions remain properly assigned over time and that no unauthorized changes slip through.

How SGNL secures administration:

• Continuous visibility: SGNL leverages GitHub’s API to query users, teams, repositories, and organizations, maintaining a real-time understanding of the current permission state.
• Webhook integration: By subscribing to outbound webhooks, SGNL detects permission changes as they happen, ensuring instant response to any non-compliant modifications.
• Automated enforcement: If an unauthorized change occurs—such as granting excessive permissions—SGNL can automatically revert the change and notify administrators via email, Slack, or ticketing systems.
• Context-driven decisions: SGNL ingests additional data sources, such as HR systems or identity providers, to enrich security decisions and ensure only authorized users retain access.

By continuously monitoring and enforcing access policies, SGNL helps organizations maintain strict governance over their CI/CD platforms without burdening administrators with constant manual reviews.

Enforcing security at the code level

Beyond managing access to the platform, the next critical layer of security is ensuring only authorized users can merge and deploy code. The typical Git workflow involves cloning a repository, making changes, committing updates, and pushing code back to a branch. When changes are ready, they go through a pull request (PR) process before merging into the main branch, often triggering automated deployment pipelines.

How SGNL secures code management:

1. Pull request protection: Since merging changes into the main branch is a high-risk action, SGNL enforces policies at this checkpoint. Before allowing a merge, SGNL checks whether the developer has the necessary approvals, such as an associated ticket in a project management tool.
2. Deployment control: If a merge is approved, the next checkpoint is deployment. SGNL verifies that the developer has access to the appropriate test and production environments before allowing the deployment process to proceed.
3. Policy-driven automation: SGNL ensures that all actions within the pipeline comply with security policies, preventing unauthorized users from making changes that could introduce vulnerabilities.

By integrating directly into the merge and deployment workflows, SGNL provides a seamless way to enforce security without slowing down the development process.

Why cloud-native security matters

With most modern applications running in cloud environments, securing cloud-based DevOps workflows is more important than ever. SGNL is designed to integrate with leading cloud services and tools, enabling organizations to implement real-time security without requiring process changes. Whether you use AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud, SGNL ensures that your CI/CD pipeline remains protected without disrupting your existing workflows.

Key benefits of SGNL integration:

• Real-time security enforcement: Ensures security decisions are made dynamically based on the latest context.
• Seamless integration: Works with existing GitHub, GitLab, and cloud-based DevOps tooling without requiring modifications.
• Automated governance: Reduces the risk of human error and security drift by continuously monitoring and enforcing policies.

By integrating SGNL into your CI/CD pipeline, you gain precise, context-aware control over both administration and code management, ensuring that only the right people can access and deploy critical code. With cloud-native security built into your DevOps workflows, your organization can move fast, without compromising on security.