HashiCorp's CISO emphasizes the importance of understanding infrastructure drift, which can occur due to various reasons such as non-standardized IaC workflows, emergencies, basic system updates, and cascading effects. Infrastructure drift can significantly impact security, functionality, and business operations, including unplanned downtime, audit findings, security incidents, rework, and unused resources. To mitigate the issue, organizations should implement drift detection and remediation solutions that provide centralized visibility, automate the process, and alert teams to take corrective action. HashiCorp's Terraform provides built-in functionality for infrastructure automation with workflows and drift detection features, offering a scalable solution for teams concerned with drift.