Organizations are quickly using cloud-native design patterns to update their business processes and allow faster time to market. Microservices, vessels, automated CI/CD pipelines, container management, unified quantitative measurements, and cloud infrastructure are all part of cloud native application protection design.
On the other hand, modern cloud computing services suffer security concerns such as data breaches, software bugs, account hijacking, unsecured APIs, malevolent insiders, accidental deletion, denial of service, and poor credential handling.
To combat these attacks, businesses should implement a zero-trust paradigm for their information and services and support the DevSecOps movement to incorporate security practices throughout the software development lifecycle (SDLC).
Enterprises are using container technologies such as Docker to ease cloud-native apps’ manufacturing and deployment workflow. Kubernetes is a prominent container orchestration solution for automating containerized applications’ deployment, scalability, and maintenance.
Adopting DevOps techniques allows teams to develop and deliver features swiftly, but it also raises concerns about the security of your cloud-native apps. As a result, including security principles within DevOps is necessary.
This article will:
- Describe the four Cs of cloud security.
- Overview of cloud-native security issues.
- Display security concerns for cloud-native apps.
- Describe how you will include security in your CI/CD process.
Cloud-Native Security’s Four Cs
Cloud, clusters, canisters, and coding are the four Cs of cloud-native security. Each layer derives from the outside security levels, with the code layer constructed on top of the cloud, clusters, and container layers. Let’s go over the guidelines for securing your design at each tier briefly:
- The cloud is the cornerstone of all layers of protection, and every cloud hosting (such as AWS, Cloud Computing, Google Cloud, and IBM Cloud) offers infrastructure protection for running applications.
- Clusters – RBAC permission, secrets administration, pod security protocols, and security settings are the key security issues at this tier, and Kubernetes is the usual operating tool.
- Container security postures advocated in this tier include container vulnerability detection, image signing, and restricting privileged users.
- Companies with the most influence over this layer may apply security suggestions such as static code analysis, DevSecOps techniques, and incorporating security into the CI/CD pipeline.
Cloud-Native Security Issues
Because of the COVID-19 epidemic, firms are adopting a remote work paradigm, making data and system security more important than ever. The “Zero Trust” security paradigm can enhance your organization’s overall security posture if you plan to implement a workforce or hybrid workplace environment. The fundamental premise is to avoid naively trusting anything within the security perimeter (business network) and to authenticate and approve every person, application, and device that attempts to access the infrastructure, whether inside or external to the company.
The following are the major technologies and principles for developing zero-trust architectures:
- Multi-factor authentication
- Identity and accessibility administration
- Device inventory access
- Firewalls management
- Security and clustering techniques
- Fewest privileges access
- Watching network traffic in real-time
Application Security in the Cloud
Containers make it simple to bundle and deploy your application’s runtime requirements. It alleviates configuration management difficulties across your production and testing environments. Containers, on the other hand, are transitory and have a limited life period. Making container security difficult compared to typical security systems for threat detection and vulnerability testing.
Container Safety
Containers give some isolation and protection out of the box. Still, they also pose new security risks such as kernel vulnerabilities, attacks that denial of service poisoning images, container escapes, and compromised information. Because flaws in one container might potentially affect other instances operating on the same host.
Good practices include following the concept of least privilege and restricting user access to containers. A remote management device is needed to safely store credentials and enable containers to retrieve sensitive data while operating.
Furthermore, because container images are irreversible, any vulnerability in the image will exist for the duration of the image. As a result, you must verify that the images are periodically analyzed for vulnerabilities as parts of your CI/CD pipeline. It would help if you had a real insight into your cluster settings while executing cloud-native apps in a containerized environment.
Security Model of Shared Responsibility
Security is a shared duty between the cloud provider and its consumers in the public cloud. The distinction between security “of” the cloud and security “in” the cloud might be seen as a distinction between the two. The cloud provider safeguards the entire infrastructure on which the applications run and handles operational problems at the physical and network layers. On the other hand, customers are accountable for their core functionality, including program code and level-based security.
Cloud-Native Security Automation
The DevOps technique emphasizes cooperation and transparency between production and maintenance processes. However, security standards must not be overlooked and pushed farther downwards in the pipeline to reduce time to markets. DevSecOps enters the picture, introducing operations and security procedures early in the development cycle.
Security Shift-Left Strategy
Including security in the development process is critical since you do not want safety to be an accident. Instead, you must design and construct systems with a focus on security. Because identifying and fixing security flaws in production is costly and time-consuming, the purpose of shifting security left is to apply security policies and undertake security assessment during the development phase – rather than afterward.
Adding Security to CI/CD Pipelines
Incorporating security measures into your automation pipelines is critical to effectively delivering high-quality technology. Because the DevOps pipeline has the necessary rights to deliver changes into your ecosystem, it must be protected by strict security safeguards. For their CI/CD pipelines, developers can use various open-source and private security technologies. The objective is to detect security concerns as early as possible. Low-friction solutions like secure coding standards, the peer-review process, and static program inspection are easier to apply.
Conclusion
With the cultural change of incorporating security into DevOps, software developers now have the added duty of automating application security assessment. which integrates it into the deployment pipeline. Security concepts and best practices training for development studios can assist bridge the information gap.
Furthermore, development teams that collaborate closely with IT security teams can mitigate security risks early in the SDLC. It can achieve the shift-left notion in the context of program safety and development.
