Checking Infrastructure Compliance
Overview
Audit infrastructure configurations against compliance frameworks (CIS Benchmarks, SOC 2, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, GDPR) using policy-as-code tools like Open Policy Agent (OPA), Checkov, and tfsec. Generate compliance reports, identify violations, and produce remediation plans for Terraform, Kubernetes, and cloud provider configurations.
Prerequisites
- Policy-as-code tool installed:
checkov,tfsec,opa, orkube-bench - Infrastructure-as-code files (Terraform, CloudFormation, Kubernetes manifests) in the project
- Cloud provider CLI authenticated with read access to resources
- Compliance framework requirements documented (CIS, SOC 2, HIPAA, PCI-DSS)
jqfor parsing JSON policy outputs
Instructions
- Identify the applicable compliance framework(s) based on industry and data classification
- Scan Terraform files with
checkov -d.ortfsec.to detect misconfigurations - Scan Kubernetes manifests for security issues: missing resource limits, privileged containers, missing network policies
- Validate IAM policies for least-privilege violations using cloud-native tools (
aws iam access-analyzer) - Check encryption at rest and in transit: verify S3 bucket encryption, database TLS, and EBS volume encryption
- Audit logging configurations: confirm CloudTrail/Cloud Audit Logs are enabled and sent to immutable storage
- Generate a compliance report mapping each finding to the relevant control (e.g., CIS AWS 2.1.1)
- Produce remediation Terraform/YAML patches for each violation with severity ranking (Critical, High, Medium, Low)
- Set up CI/CD integration so compliance checks block merges on Critical/High violations
Output
- Compliance scan results in JSON/SARIF format for CI integration
- Markdown compliance report with control mappings and pass/fail status
- Remediation code patches (Terraform diffs, Kubernetes manifest updates)
- OPA/Rego policy files for custom organizational rules
- CI/CD pipeline step configuration for automated compliance gating
Error Handling
| Error | Cause | Solution |
|---|---|---|
checkov: no Terraform files found | Scanner run from wrong directory | Specify path explicitly with -d path/to/terraform/ |
tfsec: failed to parse HCL | Syntax error in Terraform files | Run terraform validate first to fix HCL syntax before compliance scan |
False positive on compliance check | Rule too broad for the specific use case | Add inline skip comments (#checkov:skip=CKV_AWS_18:Reason) or create a .checkov.yml skip list |
OPA policy evaluation error | Rego syntax error or missing input data | Test policies with opa eval -d policy.rego -i input.json and validate Rego syntax |
Scan timeout on large codebase | Too many files or complex module references | Use --compact mode, scan directories individually, or increase timeout limits |
Examples
- "Run a CIS Benchmark compliance check against all Terraform files and generate a report with remediation steps for Critical findings."
- "Create OPA policies that enforce: all S3 buckets must have encryption, all EC2 instances must have IMDSv2, and all security groups must not allow 0.0.0.0/0 ingress."
- "Scan Kubernetes manifests for PCI-DSS compliance: verify no privileged containers, all pods have resource limits, and network policies exist for every namespace."
Resources
- Checkov: https://www.checkov.io/
- tfsec: https://aquasecurity.github.io/tfsec/
- Open Policy Agent: https://www.openpolicyagent.org/docs/latest/
- CIS Benchmarks: https://www.cisecurity.org/cis-benchmarks
- kube-bench (CIS for Kubernetes): https://github.com/aquasecurity/kube-bench