Penetration Testing Autonomous Delivery Systems
Autonomous delivery systems are high-value targets. Here is how to pen test the delivery pipeline itself, not just the software it produces.
Most penetration testing focuses on the applications and infrastructure that the delivery pipeline produces. But the delivery pipeline itself is a high-value target. An attacker who compromises the autonomous delivery system can inject malicious code into every future deployment, modify governance policies to weaken security controls, or exfiltrate secrets that provide access to production environments.
Attack surface of autonomous delivery
The attack surface of an autonomous delivery system includes the model endpoint, the policy engine, the credential store, the artifact registry, and the deployment orchestrator. Each of these components has its own threat model, and compromising any one of them can have cascading effects on everything the system produces.
- Model endpoint testing: can an attacker influence the model to generate malicious code through prompt injection
- Policy engine testing: can governance policies be bypassed or weakened without triggering alerts
- Credential store testing: can secrets be exfiltrated or used outside their intended scope
- Artifact registry testing: can signed artifacts be replaced with unsigned or tampered versions
- Deployment orchestrator testing: can unauthorized deployments be triggered or legitimate ones blocked
If you only pen test the software your pipeline produces, you are testing the output but not the factory. An attacker who owns the factory owns every future output.
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Related reading
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Secrets Management in Autonomous Delivery Pipelines
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Autonomous Delivery for Regulated Industries: Healthcare, Finance, Defense
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