Azure DevOps: Recommended Practices for Secure Pipelines

Introduction

This repos started as part of building a customer presentation. After digging into it I found that I could keep on adding content related to this topic. So this is an attempt on doing so in a structured way.

I would love to get feedback on the content and would like to keep expanding and updating the content. So please add your comments/issues and I will look into it when I have time :-)

Pipelines in the context of Azure DevOps covers both build (CI) and release pipelines (CD). Most of the stuff here is related to Azure DevOps when deploying to Azure, but might be equally applicable in many other situations as well. Feel free to use the information anyway you want - see the LICENSE. These are my personal recommendations! No guarantees of any kind given and I am not responsible for any damages :-)

For a general introduction to the security in the Azure DevOps service please see the security whitepaper.

If you are interested in DevSecOps from a cultural perspective I would recommend this article: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/learn/devops-at-microsoft/security-in-devops

Practices

1. Secure Your Azure DevOps Account
2. Know Your Azure DevOps Account & Projects
3. Understand the Main Security Concepts in Azure DevOps
4. Design & Maintain Your Pipelines
5. Setup Detailed Permissions for Pipeline
6. Use Approvals, Gates & Pull Requests
7. Use Continuous Security Tools in Pipelines
8. Use Artifacts for Package Management
9. Implement Regular Azure Governance
10. Understand Security in Agents and Agent Pools
11. Share Configuration Across Pipelines
12. Secure Service Connections & Service Principals
13. Use Azure Key Vault
14. Manage Extensions
15. Use Pipeline Decorators

Current version: v1.3

Last update: 03-12-2019