Venafi added an ability to prevent unauthorized code from running in IT environments that make use of its machine identity management platform.
Shivajee Samdarshi, chief product officer at Venafi, said the Stop Unauthorized Code Solution leverages the company’s CodeSign Protect offering to ensure that only authorized code can run on any given platform.
The overall goal is to enable organizations to better secure their software supply chains using a zero-trust approach to software based on identity management and code signing to verify software comes from an approved source and complies with policy controls, he added.
All code is signed using private digital certificates or those issued by trusted certificate authorities, said Samdarshi. Before code can execute, the security platforms an organization has in place can be configured to check that digital signature against trusted code signing certificates, he noted.
Interest in securing software supply chains has risen sharply since the Biden administration issued an executive order requiring federal agencies to implement a range of measures, including code signing, to achieve that goal. However, securing software chains is often more challenging than organizations initially appreciate.
In fact, a recent Venafi survey found that 70% of security and IT leaders believe that software supply chain attacks are their biggest security blind spot. Additionally, 85% believe that continuous security validation of the CI/CD pipeline is vital to reduce the risk of vulnerabilities going undetected during the software development lifecycle. A full 88% said they believe machine identity management is essential to the success of zero-trust models that are being more widely adopted across enterprise IT environments.
Arguably, the most important thing organizations need to focus on is making sure application developers and cybersecurity professionals develop a working relationship. The biggest barrier to the adoption of DevSecOps best practices required to secure software supply chains remains largely cultural. For more years than anyone cares to admit, many developers have viewed cybersecurity more as a hindrance to application development that needs to be overcome or circumvented rather than being a core aspect of a quality assurance process. The total number of vulnerabilities that exist in applications running in production environments could likely be measured in the billions.
Remediating all those vulnerabilities may never be practical, but at the very least, DevSecOps teams could make sure that no new code containing vulnerabilities is allowed to execute. Cybercriminals have become especially adept at inserting malware into code that they hope will find its way into any number of downstream applications before they activate it. That capability alone should help mollify cybersecurity teams that are increasingly being tasked with improving software supply chain security. The challenge is those cybersecurity teams don’t always appreciate the impact new policies can have on the pace at which applications are developed and deployed.
Like it or not, software supply chains will generally be more secure in 2024. The only thing that remains to be determined is how much friction will be injected into DevSecOps workflows to achieve that goal.
