Evaluating and Securing Terraform Code on AWS

Challenge

While Terraform simplifies Infrastructure as Code (IaC) management, maintaining security compliance across diverse AWS resources remains challenging. Rearc partnered with a Fortune 250 customer in establishing a process to evaluate Terraform code and apply security controls using a custom tool. Critical AWS resources and policies were secured for EC2, IAM, KMS, SQS, S3, VPC endpoints, and more.

Solution

• Custom Tooling: designed a custom tool to analyze and enforce security policies on Terraform code. Scanned the codebase for potential security issues across critical AWS resources and policies.
• CICD Enforcement: custom tool was integrated with CICD pipelines. Policies included restricting security group rules, enforcing least privilege IAM roles, and ensuring S3 bucket encryption.
• Static Analysis: non-compliance detected during CI/CD pipeline execution triggered build failures and alerts, prompting security reviews and recommended resolutions.

Outcome

• Post-implementation, the customer saw a significant reduction in security vulnerabilities within their AWS infrastructure.
• Automated compliance checks streamlined the process, reducing the need for manual audits.
• Regular reports and feedback helped developers understand and adhere to security best practices.
• Enabled security engineers to continuously refine and update security policies to address emerging threats.