Incorporating DevOps practices into Drupal environments necessitates a strong focus on security to protect against vulnerabilities and ensure the integrity and availability of your applications. There are many top security considerations and best practices for DevOps in web application environments. This list isn't exhaustive, but it's a good primer on some of the most important, key areas of security in the cloud for your applications.
1.) Automated Security Updates
- Automate the process of updating Drupal core and contributed modules to ensure that security patches are applied promptly. Tools like Drush or Composer, integrated within your CI/CD pipelines, can automate these updates.
- Implement security update monitoring to alert the team about new security releases for Drupal core and contributed projects.
2.) Secure Code Practices
- Conduct regular code reviews to identify and mitigate security vulnerabilities within custom code. This can be facilitated by integrating automated code analysis tools into your CI/CD pipeline.
- Adopt coding standards that emphasize security, such as those recommended by Drupal and broader PHP communities. Tools like PHP_CodeSniffer with Drupal standards can enforce these practices.
3.) Configuration Management Security
- Manage configurations securely by exporting them to code and tracking them in version control. This allows configurations to be reviewed and audited before deployment.
- Use configuration splitting to separate sensitive information from general configuration and avoid storing sensitive data in version control.
4.) Access Control and Permissions
- Practice the principle of least privilege by ensuring that users, including automated deployment accounts, have only the permissions they need to perform their tasks.
- Regularly audit user roles and permissions within Drupal and your hosting environment to prevent privilege creep and ensure that access levels are appropriate.
5.) Secure Deployment Practices
- Implement artifact-based deployment where a build artifact is created in a CI pipeline, and only the artifact is deployed to production. This minimizes the risk of deploying untested or unreviewed code.
- Secure your deployment process by using SSH keys, secret management tools, and encrypted connections to manage access to servers and services.
6.) Automated Testing for Security
- Integrate security testing tools into your CI/CD pipelines, such as static application security testing (SAST) and dynamic application security testing (DAST) tools, to identify vulnerabilities early in the development cycle.
- Perform regular security audits and penetration testing to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities.
7.) Monitoring and Logging
- Implement comprehensive logging and monitoring to detect and respond to security incidents promptly. Use tools that can analyze logs in real-time and alert on suspicious activities.
- Regularly review logs for any signs of security breaches or vulnerabilities being exploited.
8.) Secure Data Handling
- Encrypt sensitive data both at rest and in transit. Ensure that databases, backups, and communications are encrypted using strong encryption standards.
- Implement regular backup and recovery procedures to recover from data loss or corruption due to security breaches.
9.) Incident Response Plan
- Develop and regularly update an incident response plan that includes procedures for responding to security breaches. Ensure that the plan is well-documented and that team members are familiar with their roles in the event of an incident.
10.) Continuous Security Education
- Promote a culture of security awareness within the team. Provide ongoing security training and resources to keep team members updated on the latest security practices and threats.
By integrating these security considerations and best practices into your DevOps workflows, you can significantly enhance the security posture of your Drupal environments. It's important to treat security as an ongoing process, continuously improving and adapting your practices as new threats emerge and technologies evolve.
This article is part of a series on DevOps and Drupal. Parts of this article are also published by me on the Acquia Developer Portal.
