TLDR ;

Supply chain attacks increased 742% since 2019, making pipeline security a top priority

Shift-left security catches 85% of vulnerabilities before code reaches production

Container signing, SBOM generation, and policy-as-code automate compliance checks

European organizations must align pipeline controls with GDPR audit trail requirements

Your CI/CD pipeline is the gateway between source code and production. Every artifact, secret, and configuration flows through it. That makes pipelines a high-value target for attackers. According to Sonatype's State of the Software Supply Chain 2024 , supply chain attacks on open-source projects have grown 742% since 2019, with attackers increasingly targeting build systems and dependency chains.

The good news: mature tooling exists to secure every stage of your pipeline. Pre-commit hooks catch secrets before they enter version control. Automated scanners flag vulnerable dependencies during builds. Container signing proves artifact integrity at deployment time.…