Blockchain-Enabled DevSecOps Pipeline for Automated Compliance and Security Audits

Abstract

DevOps speeds up the delivery of software but is risky with centralized logging. Blockchain integration into DevSecOps provides decentralized, tamper-evident audit trails with smart contracts. This provides secure, traceable CI/CD pipelines using tools such as Jenkins, Docker, Truffle, and MetaMask for real-time, verifiable logging and compliance automation.

Introduction

Modern software delivery pipelines rely heavily on automation for building, testing, and releasing software quickly and reliably. However, current CI/CD pipelines face security challenges like unauthorized access, tampering, and poor audit transparency. To address these issues, the paper proposes integrating blockchain technology—specifically Ethereum smart contracts—into DevSecOps pipelines to ensure immutable, verifiable, and tamper-evident logging of critical CI/CD events.

The system uses existing DevOps tools like Jenkins for automation, Docker for containerization, and Truffle/Ganache for blockchain interaction. Each pipeline action (builds, tests, deployments) is logged on the blockchain, creating a decentralized, transparent, and cryptographically secure audit trail. A MetaMask-enabled frontend allows developers and auditors to access and verify logs in real time without relying on centralized servers.

Traditional CI/CD systems typically use centralized logging vulnerable to insider threats and log tampering. The proposed blockchain-based system enhances security by providing distributed consensus, immutability, and transparent verification of pipeline activities. It features modules for smart contract logging, blockchain interaction, and frontend visualization.

The paper also reviews related work, highlighting blockchain’s role in improving CI/CD security, supply chain integrity, and IoT authentication. It describes the detailed architecture, implementation (smart contracts, Jenkins pipeline integration, Docker deployment), and user interface enabling secure log retrieval and audit.

Conclusion

This research showed that it is possible to include blockchain in a DevSecOps pipeline to make it more secure, transparent and traceable. Injecting Ethereum smart contracts directly into the Jenkins CI/CD process, we constructed an immutable logging service to capture pivotal pipeline events in real time. The use of Web3.js and MetaMask provided a secure way for developers to interact with the blockchain and cryptographically trust build records. We experimented with the Ganache for a local blockchain simulation, Truffle for interacting with their contracts, Docker for containerization and Jenkins for CI. Tests also demonstrated that both logs were properly written and serviced with low latency. A frontend that is viewable in a user friendly way with meta mask was created to watch these logs. Compared with the traditional methods, our system is resistant to tampering, and mitigates the insider threats by decentralizing control. Though, it was only tested on a local network. This configuration does not simulate real-world performance concerns such as latency or gas fees on public blockchains. Moreover, the design accommodates only one CI/CD pipeline and a minimal UI despite supporting no features such as search or export. Future enhancements involve deployment on public Ethereum networks, integrating more CI/CD tools such as GitLab, and incorporating decentralized identity (DID) for secure access. Layer-2 solutions such as Polygon can minimize costs, and UI advanced features can enhance usability. AI tools can further augment log analysis and automation of compliance.

References

[1] Leite, L., Rocha, C., Kon, F., Milojicic, D., & Meirelles, P. (2019). A comprehensive review of DevOps principles and associated challenges. ACM Computing Surveys, 52(6), 1–35. https://doi.org/10.1145/3359981 [2] Gall, M., &Pigni, F. (2022). Mainstreaming DevOps: Critical insights and a conceptual roadmap. European Journal of Information Systems, 31(5), 548–567. https://doi.org/10.1080/0960085x.2021.1997100 [3] Khan, A. A., & Shameem, M. (2020). A taxonomy of DevOps risk factors using AHP. Journal of Software: Evolution and Process, 32(10), e2263. https://doi.org/10.1002/smr.2263 [4] Akbar, M. A., Mahmood, S., & Siemon, D. (2022). Blockchain-driven DevOps: A scalable and efficient approach. In Proceedings of EASE \'22 (pp. 421–427). ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3530019.3531344 [5] Bankar, S., & Shah, D. (2021). Integrating blockchain with DevOps for secure software pipelines. In Proc. ICNTE, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICNTE51185.2021.9487760 [6] Faruk, M. J. H., Shahriar, H., Valero, M., & Rahman, A. (2022). Novel methods to mitigate software supply chain attacks. In IEEE ISSRE Workshops, 283–288. https://doi.org/10.1109/ISSREW55968.2022.00081 [7] Nayaka, P. S. K., Narayan, D. L., & Sutradhar, K. (2024). A review on secure DevOps metadata using blockchain. Security and Privacy, 7(2), e342. https://doi.org/10.1002/spy2.34 [8] Qureshi, J. N., & Farooq, M. S. (2024). ChainAgile: Enhancing agile DevOps using blockchain integration. PLoS ONE, 19(3), e0299324. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0299324 [9] Farooq, M. S., Kalim, Z., Qureshi, J. N., Rasheed, S., & Abid, A. (2022). A distributed agile framework empowered by blockchain. IEEE Access, 10, 17977–17995. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2022.3146953 [10] Lu, Y. (2019). Blockchain for industrial systems: Research gaps and challenges. Journal of Industrial Information Integration, 15, 80–90. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jii.2019.04.002 [11] Gad, A. G., Mosa, D. T., Abualigah, L., &Abohany, A. A. (2022). Emerging trends in blockchain and its DevOps applications. Journal of King Saud University - Computer and Information Sciences, 34(9), 6719–6742. [12] Khalil, I., Yau, K. L. A., & Naik, K. (2021). Blockchain-based cyber-physical system security: A review. Future Generation Computer Systems, 124, 91–118. [13] Khan, A. W., Zaib, S., Tarimer, I., & Seo, J. T. (2022). Cybersecurity challenges in DevOps software environments. IEEE Access, 10, 65044–65054. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2022.3179822 [14] Marandi, M., Bertia, A., & Silas, S. (2023). Automation of security scanning in a DevSecOps pipeline. In WCONF 2023, 1–6. [15] Diel, E., Marczak, S., & Cruzes, D. S. (2016). Communication issues in global DevOps teams. In ICGSE 2016, 24–28. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICGSE.2016.28 [16] Shahin, M., Babar, M. A., & Zhu, L. (2017). CI/CD: A review of tools and challenges. IEEE Access, 5, 3909–3943. [17] Prates, L., Faustino, J., Silva, M., & Pereira, R. (2019). A metrics-driven approach to DevSecOps. In IS 2019, 77–90. [18] Tariq, F., & Colomo-Palacios, R. (2019). Smart contracts in secure DevOps workflows. In LNCS: ICCSA, 327–337. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24308-1_27 [19] Salama, R., Al-Turjman, F., & Kumar, S. (2023). Blockchain-driven cybersecurity: An extensive survey. In CICTN, 774–777. [20] Warmke, C. (2024). What is Bitcoin: Philosophical and technical implications. Inquiry, 67(1), 25–67. [21] Ahmad, J., Zia, M. U., & Naqvi, I. H. (2024). Blockchain and machine learning for secure DevOps pipelines. WIREs Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery, 14(1), e1515. [22] Sunyaev, A. (2020). Blockchain-based Web services and SaaS architecture. In Internet Computing, 155–194. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34957-8_6 [23] Sharma, T., & Sharma, P. (2024). AI and cybersecurity convergence for threat detection in CI/CD. In IGI Global, 81–98. [24] Letafati, M., &Otoum, S. (2023). Privacy models for secure blockchain-led e-health DevOps. Ad Hoc Networks, 150, 103262. [25] Mezquita, Y., Podgorelec, B., & Corchado, J. M. (2023). Interoperability model for blockchain in distributed systems. Sensors, 23(4), 1962

Copyright

Copyright © 2025 Nallam Sri Venkata Kalyan. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.