Cloud-Native Security
Cloud-native architectures require security approaches designed for dynamic, distributed, and ephemeral infrastructure. Traditional security tools don't work in environments where resources are created and destroyed in seconds.
Container Security
Image Security
- • Use minimal base images (distroless, Alpine)
- • Scan images for vulnerabilities (Trivy, Snyk, Clair)
- • Sign and verify images (Cosign, Notary)
- • Use private registries with access controls
- • Implement image admission policies
Runtime Security
- • Run as non-root user
- • Read-only root filesystem
- • Drop all capabilities, add only needed
- • Use seccomp and AppArmor profiles
- • Runtime threat detection (Falco, Sysdig)
Kubernetes Security
- • Enable RBAC with least privilege
- • Use Pod Security Standards (restricted)
- • Network Policies for pod isolation
- • Secrets management (External Secrets, Vault)
- • Audit logging enabled
Serverless Security
Security Benefits
- ✓ No servers to patch
- ✓ Ephemeral execution environments
- ✓ Auto-scaling handles DDoS
- ✓ Smaller attack surface per function
Security Challenges
- ⚠ Function permissions often over-privileged
- ⚠ Dependency vulnerabilities
- ⚠ Event injection attacks
- ⚠ Limited observability
Serverless Security Best Practices
- ☐ Assign minimal IAM permissions per function
- ☐ Validate and sanitize all event inputs
- ☐ Use environment variables for non-sensitive config
- ☐ Secrets from Secrets Manager, not env vars
- ☐ Set memory and timeout limits
- ☐ Enable X-Ray or distributed tracing
- ☐ Use VPC for functions accessing internal resources
Service Mesh Security
A service mesh like Istio, Linkerd, or Consul Connect provides infrastructure-level security for service-to-service communication.
Mutual TLS (mTLS)
Automatic encryption and authentication between all services. No code changes required.
Authorization Policies
Define which services can communicate. Service A can call Service B, but not Service C.
Traffic Policies
Rate limiting, circuit breaking, and retry policies at the infrastructure level.
Observability
Automatic metrics, logs, and traces for all service-to-service calls.
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
CSPM tools continuously monitor cloud configurations to detect misconfigurations, compliance violations, and security risks.
Common Misconfigurations
- • Public S3 buckets
- • Security groups allowing 0.0.0.0/0
- • Unencrypted databases
- • Missing MFA on root accounts
- • Overly permissive IAM policies
CSPM Tools
- • AWS Security Hub + Config
- • Azure Defender for Cloud
- • GCP Security Command Center
- • Prisma Cloud, Wiz, Orca
- • Open source: Prowler, ScoutSuite
Infrastructure as Code Security
Shift Left