6 Kubernetes Tools That Can Help Secure Containers at Runtime

Kubernetes has revolutionized the way we deploy and manage containerized applications. While it offers a robust platform for container orchestration, it's essential to implement additional security measures to protect your applications and data. In this blog post, we'll explore several key strategies to enhance the runtime security of your Kubernetes clusters. By leveraging network policies, role-based access control, policy admission control, secrets management, audit logs, and ephemeral containers, you can significantly bolster the security posture of your Kubernetes environments.

Though Kubernetes does not come with runtime security built in, it includes tools that can contribute to the security of your containers once they hit production.

1. Network Policies

Kubernetes’ default behavior is to allow all ingress and egress involving pods. Set default behavior to deny all incoming and outgoing traffic, then use network policies to finely control network behavior around containers.

2. Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)

The Kubernetes RBAC API allows you to set permissions at the pod or cluster level. This makes it easier to fine-tune authorization policies without needing to restart the cluster.

3. Policy Admission Control

Kubernetes admission controllers allow you to enforce rules that address specific attack vectors. OPA Gatekeeper and Kyverno are two policy engines that can act as admission controllers, allowing you to evaluate calls and enforce policies or deny requests.

4. Secrets

Using a Secret allows you to hide sensitive information such as a key or password from a pod that uses it. RBAC rules can then be configured to govern behavior around the reading and writing of Secrets, along with mechanisms around which users can create or replace Secrets. Credentials should never be placed in images or configuration files, for example. Instead they should be stored using a secrets management tool.

Vault can run directly on Kubernetes, allowing you to store and manage secrets both for Kubernetes and external applications. Vault includes native integrations for Kubernetes, and any other Kubernetes tool can leverage Vault. CyberArk is another popular secrets provider for Kubernetes.

5. Audit logs

Kubernetes provides little runtime security out of the box. It does provide tooling for audit logs, however, which then can be analyzed for threats using an auditing tool like Falco.

6. Debug using ephemeral containers

Kubernetes ephemeral debug containers can help with troubleshooting without the need to load debugging utilities into your images.

By incorporating these security best practices into your Kubernetes deployments, you can significantly reduce the risk of security breaches and unauthorized access. Remember that security is an ongoing process, and it's crucial to stay updated on the latest threats and vulnerabilities. By combining the power of Kubernetes with robust security measures, you can confidently deploy and manage your containerized applications.