Book Image

Kubernetes Secrets Handbook

By : Emmanouil Gkatziouras, Rom Adams, Chen Xi
Book Image

Kubernetes Secrets Handbook

By: Emmanouil Gkatziouras, Rom Adams, Chen Xi

Overview of this book

Securing Secrets in containerized apps poses a significant challenge for Kubernetes IT professionals. This book tackles the critical task of safeguarding sensitive data, addressing the limitations of Kubernetes encryption, and establishing a robust Secrets management system for heightened security for Kubernetes. Starting with the fundamental Kubernetes architecture principles and how they apply to the design of Secrets management, this book delves into advanced Kubernetes concepts such as hands-on security, compliance, risk mitigation, disaster recovery, and backup strategies. With the help of practical, real-world guidance, you’ll learn how to mitigate risks and establish robust Secrets management as you explore different types of external secret stores, configure them in Kubernetes, and integrate them with existing Secrets management solutions. Further, you'll design, implement, and operate a secure method of managing sensitive payload by leveraging real use cases in an iterative process to enhance skills, practices, and analytical thinking, progressively strengthening the security posture with each solution. By the end of this book, you'll have a rock-solid Secrets management solution to run your business-critical applications in a hybrid multi-cloud scenario, addressing operational risks, compliance, and controls.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
Free Chapter
1
Part 1:Introduction to Kubernetes Secrets Management
6
Part 2: Advanced Topics – Kubernetes Secrets in a Production Environment
10
Part 3: Kubernetes Secrets Providers

Summary

In this chapter, we focused on key concepts behind Secrets management and their importance in ensuring data protection and secure access to resources. We discussed how Secrets are created, managed, and shared among applications and services. We explored critical security risks for managing Secrets, the challenges they pose in Secrets management, and effective mitigation strategies to follow. This was followed by an in-depth analysis of Kubernetes Secrets’ security risks, including exposure in the cluster’s API server or nodes, root exploits, lack of encryption in transit, inadequate access controls, and more. Onward, we focused on mitigation strategies such as using Secrets management tools, encrypting Secrets, implementing access controls, and monitoring and auditing access to Secrets. In the next few chapters, we will see how to tackle these sensitive topics on popular cloud providers’ Secrets management and third-party Secrets management tools.

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