2025 isn’t business as usual it’s chaos.
Pipelines that we built to ship code faster are now being hijacked by attackers to ship breaches faster.
From secret leaks in GitHub repos to container escapes that jump the wall, DevSecOps has officially become a hacker’s playground.
This post breaks down the Top 10 DevSecOps vulnerabilities seen in 2025, how they’re being exploited in the wild, and practical ways to defend your stack.
- CVE-2025-31324 – SAP NetWeaver Shell Upload
The bug: Metadata uploader lets attackers drop JSP shells.
Exploitation: Real-world campaigns in finance/manufacturing.
Why it matters: One forgotten endpoint = business-critical compromise.
- Secret Sprawl in CI/CD Pipelines
The bug: AWS keys, GitHub tokens, and Slack webhooks in plain text.
Exploitation: Bots scrape repos in seconds → instant cloud jacking.
Defend: Secrets scanning tools (TruffleHog, Gitleaks) + rotation policies.
- Supply Chain Poisoning via Malicious Packages
The bug: Fake npm/PyPI packages ship hidden backdoors.
Exploitation: Early 2025 typosquats harvested env vars.
Defend: Pin dependencies, use signed packages, validate integrity.
- Kubernetes Misconfigurations
The bug: Open dashboards, weak RBAC, root pods.
Exploitation: Attackers use kubectl exec → cryptominers + persistence pods.
Defend: RBAC hardening, audit configs, policy-as-code (OPA/Gatekeeper).
- Insecure IaC Templates
The bug: Public RDS, open S3, over-permissive IAM in .tf files.
Exploitation: Recon bots scrape GitHub for leaked infra blueprints.
Defend: IaC scanners (Checkov, tfsec) in pipelines.
- Container Escape Vulnerabilities
The bug: Fresh runc/containerd flaws let attackers break isolation.
Exploitation: PoCs already traded on underground forums.
Defend: Patch fast, enable seccomp/AppArmor, enforce least privilege.
- Weak Artifact Signing & Verification
The bug: Teams skip signing builds or verifying artifacts.
Exploitation: Trojanized builds pushed to registries.
Defend: Cosign + Sigstore → sign everything, validate everything.
- Misused AI/LLM Integrations
The bug: LLMs auto-generate IaC/code suggestions without guardrails.
Exploitation: Poisoned prompts inject insecure configs (e.g., allow all).
Defend: Human review for AI-generated infra/code.
- Shadow Admins in Cloud Environments
The bug: Forgotten IAM roles with
permissions.
Exploitation: Attackers escalate → create hidden users/roles.
Defend: IAM audits, least privilege, prune unused roles.
- Insufficient Monitoring & Alert Fatigue
The bug: Logs exist but aren’t reviewed. SIEM alerts ignored.
Exploitation: Breaches discovered months later were sitting in logs.
Defend: Tune alerts, rotate reviewers, automate anomaly detection.
🛡️ Final Thoughts
DevSecOps in 2025 is a warzone. The “fast lanes” we built for code delivery are now highways for attackers.
If you’re building or securing pipelines:
✅ Think like an attacker.
✅ Automate security checks in CI/CD.
✅ Treat every config, package, and secret like a potential breach vector.
Because in 2025, it’s not about if attackers are in your pipeline… it’s about how long they’ve been there.
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