What are the security risks associated with IaC, and how can they be mitigated?

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) automates infrastructure provisioning via scripts, enabling consistent, reproducible environments. It is vital in cloud and DevOps for accelerating deployments, reducing errors, and supporting scalable, resilient applications like Kubernetes clusters and microservices.

Core components include declarative languages (e.g., Terraform), version control (e.g., Git), and CI/CD integration. Features involve immutability and testability, allowing infrastructure changes to be versioned and validated. This drives automation benefits but heightens risks if security practices are neglected, affecting compliance and incident response.

Security risks encompass misconfigurations, secret leaks, and unauthorized access. Mitigate through peer reviews, automated scanning tools (e.g., Checkov), least privilege principles, encrypting secrets, and embedding security tests in CI/CD pipelines to ensure robust posture.