Overview of Cloud Native Security and Its Importance
Before we start with cloud native security, we need to understand why we need it. Cloud native application development is an approach to developing, building, and shipping applications that take advantage of modern Cloud computing services. These applications natively utilize services and infrastructure provided by cloud computing providers, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
The goal is to secure modern, dynamic cloud-native applications, which often involve:
As cloud-native technologies continue to evolve, so do the strategies for maintaining security.
Use of Cloud Native Technologies in Production Has Grown Over 200%. Source: CNCF
What is Cloud Native Security?
Cloud-native security is a security approach in which steps to ensure security are taken throughout the distinct lifecycle of cloud-native applications, from the infrastructure planning phase to the client delivery and maintenance. Every organization has a security policy. Most of the policies believe in having a fully patched and hack-proof system and then resisting changing the setup as reconfiguration may lead to leaving some security flow.
However, the current infrastructure security scenario is entirely different. It needs to act fast and make changes. Continuous improvement and adjustments are required to make a fully secure organization. Organizations need to follow the three Rs of Enterprise security—rotate, Repave, and Repair—in continuous delivery and infrastructure automation.
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Rotate the stack credentials every few minutes or hours.
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Repave every server and application every few hours from a recognized good state.
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Repair vulnerable operating systems and application stacks consistently within hours of patch availability.
Checkout an intergrated Approach to Cloud Native Security and Observability
Common Types of Cloud-Native Security Solutions Available
Encrypted Data
Data in transit and at rest is encrypted using various algorithms to protect against unauthorized access and prevent data leakage.
Network Security
Network security involves isolating networks, controlling access, and defending against external attacks to ensure secure data transmission.
Security Scans
Regular security scans, using both open-source and commercial tools, detect vulnerabilities in cloud infrastructure and applications.
Disaster Recovery Policy
A disaster recovery policy outlines processes for restoring data and services after events such as natural disasters or system failures.
Securing DevOps with Cloud Native Security
By integrating cloud-native security into DevOps, including security automation, patch management, and access control, organizations can reduce vulnerabilities and speed up secure software delivery.
Key Components of Cloud-Native Security Architecture Explained
Several organizations are designing their own cloud-native security frameworks nowadays. For example, Google has BeyondProd as its security solution, which deals with infrastructure, microservices, pods, and development processes. In contrast, IBM has its own cloud-native secure infrastructure service that helps secure storage, memory in-use protection, network security, and trusted computing functionalities.
Different organizations in the market have different frameworks and policies to secure their environments. Some are designed as commercial frameworks to acquire more clients, while others are shared as open-source alternatives. However, in the end, an organization's security framework always depends on its business needs. Organizations without cyber security expertise tend to buy commercial or open-source security frameworks for their use, while those with cyber security expertise create their frameworks.
For comprehensive protection and expert guidance, explore our Cyber Security Consulting Services and Solutions.
Identifying Threats to Cloud-Native Applications and Services
We must mitigate these threats to have secure native cloud applications.
Unauthorized Access
Unauthorized access often occurs due to unsecured APIs or exposed legacy features. Cloud-native security platforms can help prevent such breaches by enforcing strong authentication and authorization controls across applications and resources.
Absence of Multifactor Authentication
Without multi-factor authentication (MFA), compromised credentials increase the risk of attacks, especially in cloud-native environments. Implementing MFA adds an additional layer of security, making it harder for attackers to gain unauthorized access.
Misconfiguration
Misconfiguration of cloud environments, such as using default settings or credentials, leaves systems vulnerable to breaches. Organizations must configure their cloud-based platforms properly and remove default settings to reduce attack surfaces.
Lack of Control
Using third-party cloud infrastructure services means losing control over security. Organizations should seek vendors offering cloud-native security services or on-premises solutions to maintain better control over security incidents and response times.
Data Privacy Concerns
Cloud vendors have administrative access, which can raise concerns over data privacy. To protect sensitive data, organizations must implement Zero Trust policies and audit logs and restrict data access through security controls.
How to block advanced persistent threats?
An advanced persistent threat is an armed attack on the target to get data and valuable information rather than causing damage to the organization. This attack remains undercover for a long time, silently learns how the whole stack works, and finally accesses sensitive data. If we know how the attack works, we can learn how to stop it. To launch an attack, an attacker needs three things.
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Time: APTs unfold over a long period, allowing attackers to gather information and act undetected.
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Leaked Credentials: Stolen login details enable unauthorized access to systems and data.
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Unpatched Software: Exploiting known vulnerabilities in outdated software gives attackers entry without detection.
Click here to learn how threat intelligence can help security teams to identify and mitigate security risks, respond quickly to security incidents, and improve their overall security posture.
What are the 3 R's of Cloud Native Security?
The three R's of Security is the approach toward the safety of cloud-native environments. The basic premise of the Three Rs of the Enterprise Security model is that the more time you give to the attacks, the more opportunity they will cause severe damage. So it is best to embrace the change and move quickly. Let's understand the 3 R's in detail.
Rotate
The data center's credentials of individuals, data centers, automated services, etc., should be rotated every few minutes. These credentials can be any certificates, passwords, or access tokens. Sometimes, you can't stop the credentials from getting leaked, but rotating them every few hours or minutes makes it difficult for the attackers to get hands-on with these credentials. This can be automated through a Cloud Native Security Platform to ensure security across cloud-based platforms.
Repave
Rebuild every server and application in the data center from a known secure state. Instead of patching the particular software, you can also repair the whole stack by destroying the old containers and VMs and rebuilding them from a known secure state. This approach ensures the cloud-native security of Kubernetes security and containers, helping to avoid issues caused by unpatched software and maintaining overall cloud security.
Repair
Although vulnerable components should be repaved, securing the system from vulnerability should be prioritized. Therefore, whenever a vulnerability is found, the system, program, or method should be repaired as soon as possible. This helps make the system more secure by repairing the vulnerability and reducing the attack surface area. Implementing Cloud-Native Application Security best practices ensures any vulnerabilities in the stack are patched quickly, improving cloud infrastructure security.
Adaptive Security is a holistic approach that continuously investigates behaviors and events to protect against the threat and adapt to the threats accordingly before they happen. Learn Why we should adopt Adaptive Security for Cloud Native Applications?
Comparing Traditional Security with the 3 R's Approach
The most significant concern in computer systems in today's era is security. Traditional approaches to organizational security often slow things down and slow the speed of change. Organizations have to set monitoring sensors and systems in place to check whether a security breach has happened or not. It is considered a reactive approach as detecting the threat is prioritized instead of vulnerability resolution. Patches are also applied step-wise to resolve the vulnerabilities at a later stage. This approach follows a methodology that is resistant to modern technologies. We know that the more time the attacker has to compromise with the system, the more chances there are for potential damage.
Whereas its security three R's provide an automated vulnerability resolution mechanism. It uses a proactive approach to change the system configurations efficiently. The vulnerabilities cannot be replicated, and the virus or worm would be removed as soon as possible. Instead of patching, the vulnerable components are created from scratch, which is modeled to reduce the vulnerability from the beginning. The three R's are faster, better, and more secure than traditional approaches; using them with modern technologies is very easy. Therefore, the 3 R model has changed how Cloud Native Security is viewed.
| Tradition Security | 3 R's of Security |
| Monitored and Instrumented Systems - Organizations setup monitoring to find the changes whenever the security is breached | Automated - The system needs to be quickly updated. Automation and immutable infrastructure can help to remove the system from having security-breached configurations. |
| Reactive - Detecting the threat is the priority, and then further solving the vulnerability. | Proactive - The priority is to change the system's state so the malware cannot replicate and survive. |
| Patched Incremental - Patches are applied to the old system step by step to eliminate the issue. | Fresh, Clean State Deployment—Instead of patching the old systems, new clean images are used to deploy things automatically. |
| Resisting Changes - It prefers to patch the old systems that are resisting changes. |
Promoting Changes - This approach deals with changes faster and is secure. |
Exploring the 4 C's of Cloud-Native Security Concepts
In the context of cloud-native security, understanding the four essential layers of protection is crucial to building a secure and resilient infrastructure. The Kubernetes documentation provides a comprehensive diagram that illustrates its security framework, showcasing the open-source tools and principles embedded within cloud-native applications. These principles help organizations approach security from a holistic perspective, ensuring robust protection at every layer.
This guide should describe a visual model for certain general principles regarding native protection in the cloud. Safeguarding against low safety practices in the Cloud, Containers, and Code is almost difficult if security is approached only at the code level. So, let us explain the four layers in length.
Code
Focus on securing the code throughout its lifecycle. This includes implementing secure coding practices, conducting regular code reviews, and utilizing tools for static and dynamic analysis to identify vulnerabilities early in the development process
Container
Ensure that containers are secured by using trusted images, scanning for vulnerabilities, and applying security best practices. This involves managing container runtimes and implementing security policies that govern how containers interact
Cluster
Secure the orchestration and management of container clusters (like Kubernetes). This includes configuring access controls, securing the API server, and regularly auditing cluster configurations to prevent unauthorized access and misconfigurations
Cloud
Protect the underlying cloud infrastructure. This involves managing cloud security settings, monitoring for suspicious activity, and ensuring that data is encrypted both at rest and in transit. It also includes compliance with regulations and standards relevant to your organization
Tools and Technologies for Enhancing Cloud-Native Security
Here is the list of tools that can help to secure applications:
Clair
Clair is used for static scans of docker images to detect security vulnerabilities in cloud environments. It uses the Clair client API to scan the images and match them with already known vulnerabilities available in the public domain.
Curiefense
Curiefense is an open-source cloud-native application security platform for web applications, services, and APIs. It includes bot management, firewall management, denial of service protection, session profiling, and more. It can also be integrated with Nginx and Envoy proxy tools to block malicious attacks.
Falco
Falco is a threat detection package that can be used to define security rules for containers. It scans for known CVEs and generates alerts. Unusual application usage, privilege escalation, unexpected network connection, and risk-based read/write abilities can be detected. It can also be integrated with other tools such as Kubernetes, Elastic Search, Prometheus, etc.
Open Policy Agent
The Open Policy Agent tool is developed by Styra. It is an open policy engine that can be deployed on an entire stack in the cloud. Fine-grained policies for containers, APIs, Kubernetes, and other services can be implemented. It uses a unique high-level declarative language to specify the policy for creating, updating, and deleting services and records. Context-based rules can also be created using an open policy agent.
Kube-bench
Kube-bench is an auditing tool for Kubernetes. It checks whether Kubernetes is implemented according to best security practices by running a scan based on CIS benchmarks.
Cloudsploit
Cloudsploit notifies about cloud security misconfigurations and their risks. This tool can utilize different types of compliance policies, such as HIPAA, PCI DSS, and CIS Benchmarks. It is not vendor-specific and can be used to scan multiple cloud environments.
Pacu
Pacu is a toolkit used for pen testing the AWS cloud environment offensively. Privilege escalation, backdoor, vulnerable lambda functions, etc., are some of the test cases used by this tool.
Cloud Native-Security Strategies
CI/CD Security: Integrating CI/CD security into the development pipeline ensures early detection and remediation of vulnerabilities, reducing security risks in production.
Automated Security Policies: Automated security policies ensure consistent enforcement of cloud-native security standards across development, deployment, and runtime environments.
Runtime Security Monitoring: Continuous runtime security monitoring detects suspicious behavior in real-time, ensuring rapid response to potential threats in cloud-native applications.
Cloud-Native Security Platform (CNSP): Adopting a CNSP provides a unified approach to securing applications, with integrated security controls, threat detection, and vulnerability management.
Network Security Policies: Implementing network security policies and network segmentation helps isolate workloads and restricts access to authorized services, enhancing overall security posture.
Zero Trust Architecture: A Zero Trust model ensures that no device or user is trusted by default, requiring continuous authentication and authorization for access to resources.
Essential Security Controls for Cloud-Native Environments
There are many types of cloud-native security controls that can be divided mainly into the below categories.
Deterrent Controls
The deterrent controls warn a user that his action is malicious and that the attempted action has been logged in application logs. Some users may unintentionally perform some actions that may pose a security threat to the organization or cause sensitive data leakage. Deterrent controls help block such attempts and prevent the user from proceeding further.
Preventive Controls
These preventive controls can be automated scripts, security software, or policies that prevent cyber attacks. They reduce the attack surface area and secure network access control.
Detective Controls
Detective controls cover intrusion detection systems, software, policies, and procedures. The main motive of detective control is to monitor the application, server, open ports, and any intrusive user behavior that may affect the overall security posture.
Corrective Controls
These corrective controls come into effect when there is a security breach. It may include blocking the compromised ports or blacklisting the intrusive IP address, or stopping the execution of malicious programs.
Workload Controls
The workload controls and manages the container's images, approved packages, and list of secure libraries and repositories in cloud-native environments. All the data is tracked continuously, and each newer version is updated. If the workload is distributed across multiple clients using different versions, each version in use is controlled separately.
Identity and Access Management (IAM) Controls
The IAM controls are mainly based on team member access management and customer identities. These controls prevent cross-level privilege escalations.
Key Takeaways on Cloud-Native Security
Many organizations now recognize the importance of integrating security early in the software development life cycle (SDLC) rather than relying on traditional QA processes at the end. By shifting security testing to the beginning of the cycle, teams experience much higher success rates and improved throughput. This proactive approach, often part of a DevSecOps strategy, helps identify vulnerabilities earlier, reducing the risk of security breaches later in development. Developers no longer have to wait for separate security teams to address issues, as automated security controls are incorporated throughout the development process. Continuous penetration testing and security scans now run parallel to the development pipeline, which significantly reduces application delivery time. Overall, this shift to a security-first mindset boosts efficiency, reduces risks, and ensures that cloud-native security practices are embedded throughout the development lifecycle.
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