Securing multi-environment deployments: Cloud, on-premise, and air-gapped
6 minute read time
Modern software delivery makes use of many different deployment environments, from public cloud to private cloud and traditional on-premise data centers to highly secured air-gapped systems. Organizations take advantage of multiple deployment models to meet cost optimization, regulatory compliance, and operational flexibility objectives.
However, while multi-environment deployment is a valuable software distribution strategy, it complicates software security. Inconsistent policy enforcement across different environments often creates security risks, and poor visibility across platforms may leave organizations exposed. DevOps, security, and developer teams often struggle to tackle these issues across multiple environments with disparate toolsets and varying service level agreements.
In this article, we'll look at practical strategies for establishing unified security protections across diverse deployment environments. We'll explore how organizations can leverage automation, ensure consistent security policy implementation, and enhance software supply chain security.
Key security challenges in multi-deployment environments
Managing software security across diverse deployment environments presents challenges that organizations must address to maintain a consistently effective security posture. Let's examine the key obstacles that security and development teams face when securing multi-environment deployments.
Policy fragmentation
One of the most pressing challenges is maintaining consistent software security policies across different environments. Cloud-native tools often operate differently from on-premise security solutions, leading to gaps in policy enforcement. For example, cloud environments might automatically enforce container image scanning, while on-premise systems rely on manual verification processes. The tools available on each platform vary in capability and make it difficult to consistently verify policy compliance.
Dependency management
Multi-environment deployments complicate dependency management and security issue remediation. For example, in cloud-native container environments, automated dependency updates can quickly propagate fixes without service disruption, but the same component in an on-premise system might require scheduled maintenance windows and manual updates. The timing mismatch means vulnerable components might persist in some environments even after being patched in others, creating windows of exposure that attackers can exploit.
Vulnerable components might also exist in different versions across cloud services, containerized applications, and on-prem deployments. Each instance requires specific verification and update procedures. Transitive software dependencies create additional difficulties — a security fix for one component might break compatibility in another environment due to varying dependency trees.
Visibility gaps
Organizations struggle to maintain visibility into software systems deployed across multiple environments:
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They often lack centralized SBOM capabilities, making it difficult to maintain an accurate inventory of components used in different environments.
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Ephemeral cloud resources like serverless functions and containers create blind spots in security monitoring.
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Complex dependency management for relationships between legacy on-premise binaries and modern cloud artifacts go unmapped.
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Different tooling across environments creates inconsistent visibility into security status and compliance.
Open source malware
The threat of malicious code infiltrating applications through open source dependencies is a significant and growing risk. When dependencies are managed inconsistently across environments, organizations are more vulnerable to software supply chain attacks. Malware that enters through a compromised package in one environment can potentially spread to others if proper controls aren't in place.
Best practices for securing multi-environment deployments
Many of the challenges we have reviewed are amplified by reactive approaches to software security, where activity focuses on issue discovery and remediation instead of prevention. But by the time compromised code reaches any environment — cloud, on-premise, or air-gapped — the damage may already be done and removal and remediation are both more expensive and more disruptive.
Instead, security activity should reduce the risk of vulnerable components and malware being deployed in the first place. Let's look at some of the ways organizations can reduce the risk posed by vulnerable and malicious software with a proactive security posture and effective cross-platform software security tools.
Automate application security
Automation is key to maintaining consistent security across diverse environments. Automated security checks throughout the application lifecycle minimize human error and ensure uniform policy enforcement. Sonatype Lifecycle exemplifies this approach by automatically identifying open source dependencies to ensure security policies are enforced in IDEs, SCMs, and CI/CD tools.
Centralize policy management
While environments may differ, security policies should be consistent and centrally managed. Establish a single source of truth for software security policies and ensure these policies are automatically enforced across all environments. Sonatype Lifecycle enables organizations to define and enforce consistent software security policies throughout the development and deployment process.
Leverage comprehensive SBOM management
A software bill of materials (SBOM) provides essential visibility into your software components across all deployment environments. Modern SBOM tools like Sonatype SBOM Manager provide an accurate, up-to-date inventory of software components, their versions, and their relationships. It provides the visibility DevOps and security teams need for rapid security issue mitigation and compliance reporting.
Integrate software composition analysis into CI/CD pipelines
Software composition analysis (SCA) identifies the components that make up your applications and provides insights about their security status, license compliance, and other details — all in line with your custom security policies. SCA should be seamlessly integrated into your development processes and CI/CD pipelines to identify vulnerable and malicious software before it reaches production.
Sonatype Lifecycle provides sophisticated SCA capabilities that can be integrated with developer tools, providing automated policy enforcement and security insights for all deployment environments. Sonatype Lifecycle ensures that security checks are consistent and automated, regardless of where applications are ultimately deployed.
Implement shift left security with developer tools
Empowering developers with security tools early in the software development life cycle (SDLC) prevents security issues before they become embedded in your applications. Sonatype Lifecycle integrates with IDEs like VS Code and Eclipse and SCM systems like GitHub and Bitbucket to ensure that developers make secure component choices from the start.
Strengthen software supply chain security
Vulnerable and malicious software components should be rejected before they are integrated into applications and deployed into production environments. Detecting and mitigating software security issues early in the SDLC is much less complex and costly, especially in multi-deployment environments.
Sonatype Repository Firewall provides proactive protection by automatically detecting and intercepting open source malware before it enters your development ecosystem. A repository firewall is particularly valuable for organizations managing multiple artifact repositories across different environments because it ensures developers are using the most secure components available.
Build secure, stay agile
Optimizing security across multiple deployment environments doesn't have to degrade development speed or operational efficiency. Actionable security insights, a comprehensive SBOM, and automatic policy enforcement empower development teams to build and deploy software securely while maintaining the agility needed to meet business demands.
The key is choosing tools that work across all your environments. Sonatype's solutions — which can be hosted in the cloud, on self-hosted infrastructure, and even in air-gapped environments — simplify shift-left software security, preventing vulnerable and malicious code from entering any environment while giving developers the tools they need to work quickly and securely.
Book a demo to see how Sonatype can help secure your software supply chain.
Aaron is a technical writer on Sonatype's Marketing team. He works at a crossroads of technical writing, developer advocacy, software development, and open source. He aims to get developers and non-technical collaborators to work well together via experimentation, feedback, and iteration so they ...
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