Security|Jul 30, 202310 min read

Hardening Kubernetes Clusters in Transition

Hardening Kubernetes Clusters in Transition

The "interim state" is the period between signing an acquisition agreement and executing full systems integration. It is the most vulnerable phase of the infrastructure life cycle. Insecure site-to-site VPN tunnels are often established, bridging legacy target environments with modern corporate networks without fine-grained security policies.

Zero Trust Network Ingress

Instead of bridging network layers via VPC peering, we implement SPIRE/SPIFFE to enforce workload-to-workload identity verification. This bypasses static firewall rules and IP-based access sheets, ensuring that even if a legacy cluster is compromised, it cannot make arbitrary connections to corporate data layers.

Securing the Kubernetes API Server

  • Enforcing mutual TLS (mTLS) for all service communications.
  • Implementing OPA Gatekeeper policies to reject workloads without verified security contexts.
  • Restricting access to the Kubernetes control plane using private API endpoints.
K8SZERO TRUSTSPIFFE
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ulil albab

Technical M&A Lead & Infrastructure Architect

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