Connect APVISO with Terraform

How APVISO Will Integrate with Terraform

The planned APVISO Terraform integration will connect infrastructure provisioning with security validation, ensuring that every infrastructure change is automatically tested for vulnerabilities. As organizations adopt Infrastructure as Code, the speed of infrastructure changes accelerates — and so does the risk of introducing security misconfigurations that only dynamic testing can catch.

Post-Apply Security Scanning

The core workflow is straightforward: after terraform apply provisions or modifies infrastructure, APVISO automatically scans the affected targets. For example, if Terraform provisions a new load balancer with a public endpoint, APVISO immediately tests that endpoint for vulnerabilities — TLS configuration, HTTP security headers, exposed management interfaces, and application-level vulnerabilities.

This post-apply scanning catches issues that static IaC analysis cannot detect. Static tools like tfsec and Checkov analyze your Terraform code for known misconfigurations, but they cannot test the actual behavior of the deployed application. APVISO's dynamic testing verifies that the real, running infrastructure is secure — not just that the configuration looks correct.

Terraform Provider for Declarative Scan Management

The APVISO Terraform provider will allow you to manage scans as Terraform resources. Define an apviso_scan resource that specifies a target URL, scan profile, and severity threshold. When you run terraform apply, the scan is triggered. The resource tracks the scan status, and terraform output exposes the scan results — finding counts by severity, scan duration, and a link to the full report.

This declarative approach means your security scanning configuration lives alongside your infrastructure configuration, versioned in the same repository and reviewed in the same pull requests. Changes to scanning policy are visible, auditable, and reproducible.

Terraform Cloud Run Tasks

For organizations using Terraform Cloud or Terraform Enterprise, APVISO will integrate as a run task. Run tasks are triggered at specific points in the Terraform Cloud workflow — during planning, after applying, or both. APVISO's run task triggers a scan after the apply phase completes and reports results back to Terraform Cloud.

The run task result can be configured as advisory (informational) or mandatory (blocks subsequent operations). In a mandatory configuration, if APVISO discovers Critical vulnerabilities in the newly deployed infrastructure, the Terraform Cloud run is marked as failed. This does not roll back the infrastructure change (the apply has already completed), but it prevents dependent workspaces from applying their changes until the security issue is resolved.

Plan-Aware Targeted Scanning

A full penetration test after every terraform apply would be time-consuming and wasteful. The APVISO Terraform integration can read the plan output to determine what changed and scope the scan accordingly:

• If a new public-facing resource was created, scan its endpoints comprehensively
• If an existing security group was modified, focus on testing the affected ports and protocols
• If only internal resources changed (no public exposure), skip the scan or run a reduced-scope check

This plan-aware approach reduces scan time from hours to minutes for incremental infrastructure changes while maintaining comprehensive coverage for significant deployments.

Sentinel Policy Integration

Terraform Cloud's Sentinel policy framework can incorporate APVISO scan results into policy decisions. Write Sentinel policies that enforce security requirements based on APVISO data. For example, a policy might require that all public-facing infrastructure must pass an APVISO scan with no Critical findings before the workspace is considered compliant. Combined with Sentinel's governance capabilities, this creates a powerful security gate at the infrastructure layer.

Drift Detection and Continuous Validation

Infrastructure drift — when the actual state of deployed resources diverges from the Terraform configuration — can introduce security vulnerabilities. When Terraform Cloud detects drift during scheduled checks, APVISO can automatically scan the affected resources to determine whether the drift has security implications. This continuous validation approach ensures that security testing covers not just planned changes but also unplanned modifications to your infrastructure.

Complementing Static IaC Analysis

The APVISO Terraform integration is designed to complement, not replace, static IaC security tools. A comprehensive infrastructure security strategy uses both approaches: static analysis catches misconfigurations in the code before deployment (shift left), while APVISO's dynamic testing verifies the actual security posture of the running infrastructure (validate right). Together, they provide defense in depth for your infrastructure pipeline.