Kubernetes Security Best Practices in 2024

First published: 03 Jun 2024
Last modified: 19 Sep 2024
Author CKA: Vincenzo Tagliavia (CKA, CKAD, CKS)

This article does not prescribe security solutions, nor does it serve as a step-by-step guide to fixing specific Kubernetes cluster vulnerabilities.

Although security is a big issue when it comes to Kubernetes developments, many security reports coming from highly-reputable organizations all converge to similar results: misconfiguration is the top reason security breaches occur.

We want to offer a different, more holistic approach to Kubernetes security.

Since Kubernetes runs primarily in user-space, but all the workloads communicate with the Kernel via various “Interfaces” (e.g. the Container Runtime Interface and Container Networking Interface), we must view security with different lenses. The “whole” is made of a lot of different components, but to simplify (and we love simplicity), we dissect it into three main layers:

Kubernetes Security Architecture
Figure 1: Our Kubernetes Security Architecture includes three major parts: application, orchestrator, and kernel/hardware layers.

The issue with Kubernetes security isn’t just at the orchestrator layer. For example, each individual component in the Control Plane (e.g. Kubernetes API Server, ETCD, Controllers, etc.) interact with other components not necessarily bound to the same context layer. A request to the API server hits ETCD as well as workloads in other nodes, which in turn communicate with the Kernel and the underlying hardware via a number of different Interfaces, Drivers, Libraries, etc. See? We quickly lost simplicity, despite the fact we love it.

Why Is Kubernetes Deemed Insecure?

Kubernetes isn’t less secure than any other technology in the marketplace that is treated with insufficient care or lack of knowledge. The better your team’s knowledge around Kubernetes, the better your awareness and security posture will be.

Data coming from reputable sources would indicate that misconfiguration is the top reason for security breaches. These misconfigurations are preventable if you possess the know-how and prioritize security in your organization. Prioritize security via implementing internal policies and appropriate processes, such as DevSecOps, GitOps, and ZeroTrust Architecture.

What Are The Most Common Security Issues In Kubernetes?

At a Glance:

How Do We Make Kubernetes Secure?

At a Glance:

Install and Run open-source security forensic tools (static & dynamic)

If you take a reactive stance on security, or have limited resources to support security processes in your organization, install a security forensic tool, such as kubesec or Falco. The Center for Internet Security (CIS) and Kubernetes Benchmarks provide a rich set of security datasets and best practices for Kubernetes environments.

Alternatively, if your security posture is more proactive and you design policies that support your security processes, the Open Policy Agent(OPA) is an additional open-source tool for policy-engine security enforcements. OPA requires more involvement and learning efforts, but the advantages of using it play in your favor when it comes to having more granular control on your resources.

Combine different security frameworks and apply redundancy and defense-in-depth features.

The key concept here is that each Kubernetes Security Architecture layer should include both redundant security measures and defense-in-depth strategies.

Focus on Supply Chain Risks & Vulnerabilities, not just Kubernetes

The CNCF Security Model is an extension of the CISA Security Whitepaper and can be represented as a typical DevOps pipeline including four interrelated phases:

kube-security: security model: a Devops perspective
Figure 3: This Kubernetes Security Model looks like a typical DevOps pipeline.

There is nothing special about a DevOps pipeline being sketched with black or white colors. The takeaway here is to look at the bigger picture and include forensics and security measures across different phases of your deployments.

At different stages of your security processes, you need to ask yourself: “Where does this input come from?”, “Do we understand where this output goes?”, “What would happen if we do not integrate security scans in our images?”, and so on and so forth.

How AI/ML Integrations Can Help With Kubernetes Security?

AI/ML models can learn from extensive datasets of known vulnerabilities to predict and identify potential security issues in code or configuration files. If we feed these models with new knowledge and new security breaches as they happen, we could build the next-generation of security tools with more precision and power than ever before.

Integrating AI/ML tools with DevSecOps processes, we ensure security checks are integrated into every stage of the development lifecycle. This means security is considered right from the planning and design phases and continues through development, testing, deployment, and monitoring.

Automated security tests, such as SAST, DAST, and IAST, can run continuously alongside other tests. And by shifting security practices to the left, vulnerabilities can be identified and fixed earlier in the development process, reducing the cost and effort required to address them later.

Summary

What are the Kubernetes security best practices in 2024?

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