Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

Kubernetes “crossed the adoption chasm” in 2021 after 5.6 million developers used it to orchestrate their containers, according to the Cloud Native Computing Federation (CNCF). The annual CNCF survey recorded that an impressive 96% of organizations were either contemplating or outright using Kubernetes. However, Kubernetes becomes more appealing to hackers and malefactors as it becomes more popular.

Two years ago, I explored the idea of linting Rego with Rego on this blog, and how we could use the abstract syntax tree (AST) representation of a Rego policy as JSON input data, allowing us to write a “linter” for Rego using Rego itself. Open Policy Agent (OPA) is well-established for use cases like application authorization, cloud infrastructure and Kubernetes admission control, where we normally talk about policy as guardrails. But who’s guarding the guardrails?

In my previous blog on Kubernetes security foundations, we discussed the growing adoption of cloud-native applications and the security challenges they present. We highlighted the limitations of traditional network firewalls in securing these applications and emphasized the importance of implementing cloud-native security policies to protect network traffic effectively.

Kubernetes has become a vital component in cloud-native infrastructure, enabling organizations to deploy and manage containerized applications at scale. However, compliance is crucial to modern infrastructure, especially for businesses that handle sensitive data. Organizations that adopt Kubernetes must thus also be sure to maintain the security of their infrastructure, as well as address compliance requirements to meet regulatory standards.

One of the common concerns about migrating applications to Kubernetes is the control over the network traffic egressing your environment. Due to its highly dynamic architecture, Kubernetes will not tie a specific IP address to an application by default. Instead, it will lease a different IP address from an IP pool whenever the application restarts.

Established in 1875, HanseMerkur is one of the oldest private health insurance companies in Germany, with customers across Europe. The company ran multi-tenant clusters on premises with Kubespray, with around 150 internal software developers as users. As the company must handle personal information and confidential data, it adheres to ISO 27001, the German equivalent of SOC 2, as per industry standards.

Whether you use the 600+ Styra provided compliance rules or build your own, with Styra DAS, the same rules can now enforce compliance of your Kubernetes and Terraform infrastructure across all of the Code, Deploy, and Run phases.