The 4C's of Cloud Native Security

Enterprises can deploy applications that are bundled into individual containers using cloud-native platforms, which enable faster runtime, simpler management, and the ability to execute cloud apps at scale. Because they often run numerous containers across multiple hosts, organisations need orchestration solutions like Kubernetes, which are then controlled and deployed using CI/CD systems utilising DevSecOps techniques.

In the cloud native computing and containers world, security plays a crucial role like any other platforms or systems. While the recent State of Kubernetes 2022 survey highlighted the continual rise of cloud-native adoption among organizations, it has also become a popular target for threats and vulnerabilities.?

All the security experts undeniably agree upon the fact that there are no modern complex software systems that are entirely “unhackable” — there is no such platform, application or system that is 100% not penetrable. This has led to cloud-native security adopting a defence-in-depth approach that divides the system into four different layers. These are the four Cs of cloud-native security.

Cloud Security

The cloud is the foundation of all security layers. Developers cannot simply configure application security at the code level so steps must be taken at the cloud level. Cloud service providers (CSPs) are responsible for building the secure underlying cloud infrastructure. Still, businesses must understand the shared responsibility model for cloud security. Cloud security is less about setting up a secure cloud and more about using it securely.

These are the most common issues found in today’s cloud systems:

• Lack of visibility into what data is within cloud applications: SaaS cloud security issues are naturally centred around data and access because most shared security responsibility models leave those two as the sole responsibility for SaaS customers.?Every business is accountable for knowing what information is stored in the cloud, who has access to it, and what level of security they (and the cloud provider) have implemented.
• Security System Misconfigurations: Between 65 and 70 percent of all cloud security concerns are caused by security misconfigurations in the cloud network security system, according to a recent survey by the well-known cloud service providers. Critical customer data and applications may be vulnerable to an attack if a company's cloud environment is improperly setup. To verify that their data is only being viewed by the intended users, businesses may find it challenging to employ cloud infrastructure, which is designed to be easily available and encourage data sharing. Lack of visibility or control over the infrastructure inside their cloud hosting environment may exacerbate this problem.
• Theft of data from a cloud application by malicious actor: In a cloud environment, data protection is essential. As more dangers are introduced at all layers, the customer's duty is extended to the network and operating systems. The epicentre of risk for organisations should be the recent emergence of attacks that go beyond data. To operate resource-intensive tasks like cryptocurrency mining, malicious actors conduct hostile takeovers of computational resources. They then reuse those resources as an attack vector against other components of the corporate infrastructure and outside parties.
• Inadequate staff with the skills to manage security for cloud applications: Migrating to the cloud has its own set of challenges, and some organizations believe once it is transitioned all of their critical workloads to a cloud environment, the hard work is done. But cloud migration is just one step in a cloud adoption journey, and to get the maximum benefit out of the cloud, ongoing monitoring and management of cloud infrastructure is a must. A particularly specialised set of skills are needed for the proper planning, assessment, migration, deployment, management, and optimisation of a company's cloud solution. Businesses, especially SMBs, rarely devote all their time, money, or resources to their cloud infrastructure. For the firm, cloud computing could provide security concerns if any of the steps throughout the adoption process were skipped or improperly configured.?

How to Mitigate Common Cloud Computing Security Issues

Your organization is using cloud services, even if those cloud services are not a primary strategy for your information technology (IT). To mitigate cloud computing security risks, there are some of the below best practices that all organizations should work toward:

• Adopting the DevSecOps processes
• Automated application deployment and management tools
• Unified security with centralized management across all services and providers
• Understanding cloud service provider’s security framework

Cluster Security:

The second layer in cloud-native security is the cluster layer. Kubernetes is the most widely adopted container orchestration tool, so it is our focus when thinking about securing clusters. When managing the clusters, enterprises should concentrate on the following three factors:

• Insufficient access control for cluster components A Kubernetes cluster is made up of several nodes, or worker machines, which run containerized applications. The pods that make up the application workload are hosted by the worker nodes. The worker nodes and pods in the clusters are managed by a control plane. One of the main security concerns when operating clusters is weak access control. When establishing a new cluster, factors like managing API server access and limiting direct access to etcd should be crucial.
• Cluster misconfigurations The cluster nodes should be configured properly, and access controls should adhere to the same principles. Setting up an access-allow list to restrict access and managing clusters according to the least-privilege principle are industry best practises to adopt. There is a thorough guide provided by Kubernetes that explains how to safeguard clusters from unauthorised or malicious access. Additionally, it is essential to set up suitable cluster authentication and authorisation, encrypt communication using transport layer security (TLS), and safeguard critical data using secrets.
• Poor cluster networking Communication between containers, pods and services needs to be tightly controlled. The Kubernetes networking paradigm must be implemented securely using a container network interface (CNI) that enables users to limit pod traffic using network policies. By adding network policies to your Kubernetes cluster, you can lock down your containerized applications and stop unwanted network communication between your application components or between different applications running in the same shared cluster.

Container Security:

The following layer that needs to be protected is the container layer. Security for containers should be integrated and ongoing. Security for containers should be integrated and ongoing. Constant container security for your company mostly entails: Three different security concerns for containers should be on your mind.

First and foremost, you should take great care when creating your unique container images. The most common and well-known guideline for writing a solid Dockerfile is probably to avoid using the root user. Here, the least privilege principle is applicable. Run containers solely with users who have the bare minimum OS rights required for them to perform their duties.

In addition to the base image being secure, organisations must ensure that the apps running in their containers have been inspected for vulnerabilities and exposures. Even if there are some open-source tools for this purpose, not all of them can find vulnerabilities outside of the OS packages.

Finally, you would need to think about signing your container pictures. With signed container images, you can block the execution of unsigned container images, ensuring the integrity of your container images and building greater confidence. You may sign your images and uphold a system of trust for the contents of your containers by utilising image signing technologies like TUF or Notary.

Code Security:

Finally, security is the developer's duty; the Code serves as the innermost level and final "C" letter. Dev (Sec)Ops cultural principles and axioms like "You develop it, you own it" and "Shift left on security" find a natural home in Kubernetes.

Organizations have the most control at the code or application level. By limiting and keeping an eye on exposed services, ports, and API endpoints, security risk may easily be minimised. To further strengthen the application layer's security, all communication—even those between internal services—should employ TLS encryption.

We should start by discussing code security from the viewpoint of a developer. Each one of the following categories include all tools available to boost code security:

• Static Application Security Testing (SAST): One of the finest and quickest techniques to find security flaws in code is through static code analysis (SCA). It is advised to include at least one static analysis tool that scans the development pipeline for dangerous coding practises each time programmers commit new code.
• Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST): To make sure the applications are resistant to attackers, automated scans and tests should be run on a regular basis to test for common application threats like SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and cross-site request forgery (CSRF). Additionally, these tools will evaluate how well your application, container, and cluster hold up under a barrage of unexpected load and improperly formatted requests.
• Interactive Application Security Testing (IAST): The percentage software dependency risk of cloud-native applications that use libraries or depend on external resources ranges from 70% to 90%. These are sections of code that were probably developed by a third party and are now active within the programme. Typically, during the static analysis phase, these are not verified. It is advised to examine outdated or insecure libraries using tools like the OWASP dependency check.

Final thoughts:

It is crucial to apply a holistic security strategy, having security measures in place at every layer to protect cloud-native applications from a myriad of threats. Applying a Defence-in-Depth (DiD) risk management model is advisable since each layer gives its own attack surface and might not be shielded by the other layers. We also need to remember security vulnerabilities are not just relevant to hardware and software but also people, since security breaches are also commonly caused by human error, negligence, and stolen information.

Cybersecurity defenders must consider every possibility and take strong precaution to safeguard systems, this is not a trivial task. Businesses must know how to use managed services and third-party technologies to increase the robustness of their containers and cloud-native apps, although this is a relatively new domain with advancements occurring in innovation. If implemented correctly and maintained, attackers have a lower chance to endanger corporate operations because the gaps between layers are closed and there are no vulnerabilities present.