Cybersecurity in DevOps Environments: A Systematic Literature Review

This systematic literature review provides a comprehensive analysis of the most critical cybersecurity challenges in DevOps environments. Through a rigorous examination of 62 peer-reviewed articles published between 2016 and 2025, we identified recurring threats, active attack vectors, structural vulnerabilities, mitigation strategies, and their technical impact on system performance and operational resilience. The analysis revealed that the most significant threats are related to uncontrolled automation, exposure of sensitive secrets in CI/CD pipelines, lack of mutual authentication between distributed services, supply chain attacks, and the use of unauthorized tools (Shadow IT). These threats simultaneously compromise core security principles, including integrity, confidentiality, and traceability. The most frequent attack vectors include code injection in CI/CD pipelines, unrestricted access to public repositories, remote execution via default configurations, and lateral movement in flat architectures. We identified 27 recurrent vulnerabilities throughout the DevOps lifecycle. The most critical include the absence of automated security testing, poor management of secrets, and reliance on unverified third-party components. More than 30 technical and organizational countermeasures were documented, such as SAST/DAST/IAST scans, infrastructure-as-code validation, secure credential storage via vaults, and integrated practices like DevSecOps and compliance-as-code. When properly implemented, these strategies do not degrade system performance and may even enhance resilience and stability. Nonetheless, a lack of comparative empirical validation in most reviewed studies limits the generalizability of proposed solutions. These findings establish a foundation for future research in emerging domains, such as the Internet of Things, where continuous, adaptive, and verifiable security is paramount for automated and dynamic environments.