KICS: A Developer-Friendly SAST Tool for Securing Infrastructure as Code

In the cloud-native era, where speed, scalability, and automation dominate, Infrastructure as Code (IaC) has emerged as a critical practice for DevOps and platform engineering teams. Tools like Terraform, Pulumi, and OpenTofu allow infrastructure to be defined, versioned, and deployed with the same rigor as application code. But just like any other code, infrastructure code is prone to security misconfigurations, errors, and vulnerabilities. A single misconfigured security group or publicly accessible storage bucket can result in devastating data breaches. This is where SAST tools for IaC play a vital role. Among the many open-source tools available, KICS (Keeping Infrastructure as Code Secure) stands out for its breadth of support, ease of use, and community-driven rules engine. In this article, we’ll explore what KICS is, how it works, and how it can be applied to a real-world IaC project to prevent security issues before deployment.

Apr 30, 2025 - 06:26

KICS: A Developer-Friendly SAST Tool for Securing Infrastructure as Code

In the cloud-native era, where speed, scalability, and automation dominate, Infrastructure as Code (IaC) has emerged as a critical practice for DevOps and platform engineering teams. Tools like Terraform, Pulumi, and OpenTofu allow infrastructure to be defined, versioned, and deployed with the same rigor as application code.

But just like any other code, infrastructure code is prone to security misconfigurations, errors, and vulnerabilities. A single misconfigured security group or publicly accessible storage bucket can result in devastating data breaches. This is where SAST tools for IaC play a vital role.

Among the many open-source tools available, KICS (Keeping Infrastructure as Code Secure) stands out for its breadth of support, ease of use, and community-driven rules engine. In this article, we’ll explore what KICS is, how it works, and how it can be applied to a real-world IaC project to prevent security issues before deployment.