Centralised Security Gates for a Growing Microservices Estate
Eight weeks was all it took to bring dozens of independently built services under one security standard. By rolling out Snyk as a single source of truth, we gave every team instant visibility into open-source risks, enforced “fail-the-build” gates in CI, and replaced manual audits with real-time dashboards.
Background & Challenge
- Legacy dependencies: several services still ran outdated or vulnerable libraries.
- No central visibility: security issues were scattered across repos with no unified view.
- Zero pre-PR checks: code with known CVEs could merge unchecked.
- Audit pressure: internal compliance reviews were growing frequent and strict.
How We Helped
- Snyk dashboard & ownership grouping – linked every repository to one workspace and tagged issues by team for clear accountability.
- Grace-period rollout – two-sprint window focused on clearing high-severity vulns while new ones were tracked (not yet blocking) to avoid pipeline paralysis.
- Dependency modernisation – prioritised and upgraded stale libraries; issued safe-upgrade guidelines where breaking changes appeared.
- Code-freeze enforcement – after the grace period, CI/CD blocked merges for services with unresolved vulnerabilities (hotfixes exempt but monitored).
- Developer CLI integration – standardised Snyk CLI in local workflows; every pull request ran an automatic scan surfaced in GitHub/GitLab.
- Accountability model – resolution times fed into dashboards and engineering KPIs, embedding security culture across teams.
Outcomes & Benefits
- Centralised Visibility: one Snyk dashboard now surfaces every active vulnerability in real time.
- Legacy Risk Reduction: high-severity issues cleared during rollout; outdated libraries systematically upgraded.
- Shift-Left Security: pre-PR scans and CI blockers prevent insecure code from merging.
- Continuous Compliance: audit-ready posture maintained through enforced gates and tracked KPIs.
- Ownership Culture: clear metrics and dashboards drive team accountability for secure code.
Tech Stack
- Snyk (dashboard, CLI, API)
- GitHub Actions / GitLab CI
- Node.js, Go, Java microservices
- Kibana & Grafana internal dashboards
- Jira issue tracking · Slack real-time alerts
