🔥 GITLAB CI/CD HARDENING FIELD GUIDE, Ivan Piskunov, free pdf, ver.1.0, Apr 2026

🧭 SHORT DESCRIPTION
The Guide is a practical, operator-focused handbook for auditing, securing, and maturing GitLab CI/CD in real enterprise environments.

It is designed for security engineers, DevSecOps specialists, platform teams, and technical leaders who need a clear, hands-on view of GitLab architecture, trust boundaries, runner risk, secrets exposure, deployment governance, and audit readiness.

🤔 The guide combines fast assessment checklists, structured hardening playbooks, attack-pattern analysis, and real operational guidance for teams inheriting an existing GitLab estate.

📌 WHAT’S INSIDE
✅A fast first-hour audit framework for engineers joining a new company and needing a rapid security read on GitLab
✅A 5-day audit plan with practical review priorities, menu paths, and evidence checkpoints
✅A 2-week hardening sprint playbook with step-by-step actions for identity, runners, secrets, environments, and policy enforcement
✅A clear breakdown of GitLab architecture, core components, and trust boundaries from control plane to execution plane
✅Common attack patterns, misconfigurations, and business impact mappings for GitLab CI/CD compromise scenarios
✅A training and threat-modeling appendix covering CI/CD Goat and the OWASP Top 10 CI/CD Security Risks through a GitLab lens

🧩 ABOUT THIS HANDBOOK
This handbook is a private compilation and editorial synthesis of official documentation, practical engineering experience, field-tested review patterns, and real-world security cases. It reflects the author’s perspective, structure, and interpretation, repackaging scattered technical guidance into a single, practitioner-oriented reference for engineers who need actionable GitLab hardening guidance rather than abstract theory.

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