Cloud Native Software Security Handbook: Unleash the power of cloud native tools for robust security in modern applications

BIRMINGHAM—MUMBAI

Cloud Native Software Security Handbook

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To all who dare to dream: you can, if you believe you can.

– Mihir Shah

Contributors

About the author

Mihir Shah is a recognized industry expert in the cybersecurity domain. He has been a speaker at premier academic institutes, such as Stanford University and IIT Bombay. He was an industry mentor for Stanford University’s Advanced Cybersecurity program, where he worked with multiple start-up stakeholders as a mentor. He is an active researcher at MIT and has published several papers over the past few years. He was invited to be a judge and industry expert for the coveted Globee Business Excellence awards for the Cybersecurity category. He has delivered over 30 talks over the past five years at seven conferences around the globe. He has several years of industry experience working as a software security engineer, leading the product security division for cloud engineering teams.

About the reviewers

Kuldeep Singh is an experienced data center migration architect and leader. He has expertise in infrastructure project management and has delivered successful data center projects for telecom giants such as AT&T (US) and Vodafone (Europe). He also holds various certifications for cloud solutions and project management. In his free time, he likes to keep fit by lifting weights at the gym.

I am grateful to my wife, my kid, Mozo, and my family for their constant support and encouragement throughout this project. I also appreciate the publisher for their professionalism and guidance in the publishing process. I hope this book will be useful and enjoyable to readers.

Safeer CM has been working in site reliability, DevOps, and platform engineering for the past 17 years. A site reliability engineer by trade, Safeer has managed large-scale production infrastructures at internet giants such as Yahoo and LinkedIn and is currently working at Flipkart as a senior staff site reliability engineer. He has worked with budding and established start-ups as a cloud architect and DevOps/SRE consultant.

Safeer is the author of the book Architecting Cloud-Native Serverless Solutions, as well as several blogs. He has been a speaker at and organizer of multiple meetups. He is currently an ambassador for the Continuous Delivery Foundation, where he helps the organization with community adoption and governance.

All my contributions were made possible by the infinite support of my family. I would also like to acknowledge the wisdom and support of all my mentors, peers, and the technology community around the world.

Aditya Krishnakumar has worked in the field of DevOps for the past 5+ years, with 2 years working with organizations on security-related requirements such as SOC 2. He is currently working as a senior infrastructure engineer at Sysdig, the makers of the Falco runtime security platform. He previously worked for Boston Consulting Group (BCG), where he was responsible for the SOC 2 requirements of a big data analytics product hosted on Kubernetes. He provides contributions to the DevOps community via his blog and is a member of AWS Community Builders, a global community of AWS and cloud enthusiasts.

Mayur Nagekar is an accomplished professional with 15+ years of experience in DevOps, automation, and platform engineering, and is passionate about cloud-native technologies. As a site reliability engineer and cloud architect, he has extensive expertise in Infrastructure as Code, designing distributed systems, and implementing cloud-native applications. Mayur holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of Pune, and his experience spans from start-ups to multinational companies. His proficiency in Kubernetes, containerization, and security drives innovation and efficiency.

I am incredibly grateful to my loving family and supportive friends who have been with me every step of the way. Your unwavering encouragement, understanding, and belief in me have made reviewing this book possible. Thank you for your love, patience, and unwavering support. I am truly blessed to have you all in my life.

Table of Contents

Preface

Part 1: Understanding Cloud Native Technology and Security

1

Foundations of Cloud Native

Understanding the cloud-native world

Why consider using cloud-native architecture?

Cloud models

Approach to thinking cloud-native

Components of a cloud-native system

Orchestration

Monitoring

Logging and tracing

Container registries

Service meshes

Security

Summary

Quiz

Further readings

2

Cloud Native Systems Security Management

Technical requirements

Secure configuration management

Using OPA for secure configuration management

Requiring encryption for all confidential data

Restricting access to sensitive resources

Enforcing resource limits

Secure image management

Why care about image security?

Best practices for secure image management

Clair

Harbor

Creating an HTTPS connection for the repository

Scanning for vulnerabilities in images

Summary

Quiz

Further readings

3

Cloud Native Application Security

Technical requirements

Overview of cloud-native application development

Differences between traditional and cloud-native app development

The DevOps model

Cloud-native architecture and DevOps

Introduction to application security

Overview of different security threats and attacks

Integrating security into the development process

OWASP Top 10 for cloud native

Not shift-left

Security and development trade-off

Supplemental security components

OWASP ASVS

Secrets management

How to create secrets in Vault

Summary

Quiz

Further reading

Part 2: Implementing Security in Cloud Native Environments

4

Building an AppSec Culture

Technical requirements

Overview of building an AppSec program

Understanding your security needs

Identifying threats and risks in cloud-native environments

Bug bounty

Evaluating compliance requirements and regulations

Building an effective AppSec program for cloud-native

Security tools for software in development

Threat modeling

Providing security training and awareness to all stakeholders

Developing policies and procedures

Incident response and disaster recovery

Cloud security policy

Identity and access management policies

Continuous monitoring and improvement

Summary

Quiz

Further readings

5

Threat Modeling for Cloud Native

Technical requirements

Developing an approach to threat modeling

An overview of threat modeling for cloud native

Integrating threat modeling into Agile and DevOps processes

Developing a threat matrix

Cultivating critical thinking and risk assessment

Fostering a critical thinking mindset

Developing risk assessment skills

Threat modeling frameworks

STRIDE

PASTA

LINDDUN

Kubernetes threat matrix

Initial Access

Execution

Persistence

Privilege Escalation

Defense Evasion

Credential Access

Discovery

Lateral Movement

Impact

Summary

Quiz

Further readings

6

Securing the Infrastructure

Technical requirements

Approach to object access control

Kubernetes network policies

Calico

Using Calico with Kubernetes

Principles for authentication and authorization

Authentication

Authorization

Importance of authentication and authorization

Kubernetes authentication and authorization mechanisms

Defense in depth

Infrastructure components in cloud-native environments

Compute components – virtual machines, containers, and serverless computing

Networking components – VPCs, subnets, load balancers, and ingress controllers

Storage services – block storage, object storage, and databases

Falco – real-time monitoring for cloud workloads

Summary

Quiz

Further readings

7

Cloud Security Operations

Technical requirements

Novel techniques in sourcing data points

Centralized logging with the EFK stack

Creating alerting and webhooks within different platforms

Creating alerting rules in Prometheus

Configuring webhook notifications for different platforms (e.g., Slack)

Automating incident response with custom scripts and tools

Automated security lapse findings

Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) platforms

SOAR platforms on the market

Integrating security tools and automating workflows

Integrating security tools

Automating workflows

Building and maintaining a security automation playbook

Elements of a security automation playbook

Building a security automation playbook

Maintaining a security automation playbook

Summary

Quiz

Further readings

8

DevSecOps Practices for Cloud Native

Technical requirements

Infrastructure as Code

The importance of DevSecOps

DevSecOps in practice

Continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) in DevSecOps

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and Policy as Code in DevSecOps

Security tools in DevSecOps

Security implications of IaC

Checkov – a comprehensive overview

Policy as Code

Why Policy as Code?

Implementing Policy as Code with OPA

Policy as Code in the broader DevSecOps strategy

Integrating Policy as Code into the CI/CD pipeline

Policy as Code – a pillar of DevSecOps

Policy as Code and Infrastructure as Code – two sides of the same coin

Container security

Secrets management

Network policies

Security in serverless architectures

Security observability

Compliance auditing

Threat modeling and risk assessment

Incident response

Security training and culture

Continuous learning and improvement – the DevSecOps mindset

The role of automation in DevSecOps

The importance of collaboration in DevSecOps

The power of open source in DevSecOps

Future trends – the evolution of DevSecOps

Summary

Quiz

Further readings

Part 3: Legal, Compliance, and Vendor Management

9

Legal and Compliance

Overview

Comprehending privacy in the cloud

The importance of privacy in the cloud-native landscape

The CCPA and its implications for cloud-native

Other significant US privacy laws and their implications for cloud-native

Audit processes, methodologies, and cloud-native adoption

Importance of audit processes and methodologies in cloud-native adoption

Common audit processes and methodologies

Laws, regulations, and standards

The CFAA and its implications for cloud-native software security

The FTCA and its implications for cloud-native software security

Overview of compliance standards and their implications for cloud-native software security

Case studies – incidents related to standards and their implications for security engineers

Summary

Quiz

Further readings

10

Cloud Native Vendor Management and Security Certifications

Security policy framework

Understanding cloud vendor risks

Understanding security policy frameworks

Implementing security policy frameworks with cloud vendors

Effective security policy framework in a cloud environment

Best practices for implementing a security policy framework with cloud vendors

Government cloud standards and vendor certifications

Industry cloud standards

The importance of adhering to government and industry cloud standards

Vendor certifications

Enterprise risk management

The significance of ERM in cloud security

Incorporating vendor management into your enterprise risk management program

Risk analysis

Risk analysis – a key step in vendor evaluation

Tools and techniques for evaluating vendor risk

Best practices for vendor selection

Building and managing vendor relationships

Case study

Background

Risk analysis and vendor selection

Establishing strong vendor relationship

Managing the relationship

Successful outcomes

Summary

Quiz

Further readings

Index

Other Books You May Enjoy

Preface

Writing the Cloud Native Software Security Handbook has been an exciting and fulfilling journey for me. As an author, I am passionate about helping you navigate the complex world of cloud-native security, equipping you with the knowledge and skills necessary to secure infrastructure and develop secure software in this rapidly evolving landscape.

Throughout my experience in the field, I have witnessed the transformative power of cloud-native technologies and their potential to revolutionize the way we build and deploy software. However, I have also come to realize the critical importance of robust security practices in this domain. It is this realization that motivated me to write this book – to bridge the gap between the power of cloud-native platforms and the need for comprehensive security measures.

As I delved into the creation of this handbook, I considered the needs of those among you who are eager to explore the cloud-native space and embrace its potential, while ensuring the utmost security. I embarked on a deep dive into widely used platforms such as Kubernetes, Calico, Prometheus, Kibana, Grafana, Clair, and Anchor, and many others – equipping you with the tools and knowledge necessary to navigate these technologies with confidence.

Beyond the technical aspects, I wanted this book to be a guide that goes beyond the surface and addresses the broader organizational and cultural aspects of cloud-native security. In the latter part of this book, we will explore the concept of Application Security (AppSec) programs and discuss how to foster a secure coding culture within your organization. We will also dive into threat modeling for cloud-native environments, empowering you to proactively identify and mitigate potential security risks.

Throughout this journey, I have strived to present practical insights and real-world examples that will resonate with those of you from diverse backgrounds. I believe that by sharing both my own experiences and those of others in the field, we can cultivate a sense of camaraderie and mutual growth as we navigate the intricacies of cloud-native security together.

My hope is that by the end of this book, you will not only possess a comprehensive understanding of cloud-native security but also feel confident in your ability to create secure code and design resilient systems. I invite you to immerse yourself in this exploration, embrace the challenges, and seize the opportunities that await you in the realm of cloud-native software security.

Who this book is for

This book is intended for developers, security professionals, and DevOps teams who are involved in designing, developing, and deploying cloud-native applications. It is particularly beneficial for those with a technical background who wish to gain a deeper understanding of cloud-native security and learn about the latest tools and technologies, to secure cloud-native infrastructure and runtime environments. Prior experience with cloud vendors and their managed services would be advantageous.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Foundations of Cloud Native, serves as a comprehensive introduction to cloud-native technologies, exploring the tools and platforms offered by the CNCF. It provides a clear understanding of these platforms, their use cases and applications, and how to deploy them in real time. It is designed to help those of you who are familiar with public cloud vendors and their offerings but seek to understand how they integrate with vendor-agnostic cloud-native technologies.

Chapter 2, Cloud Native Systems Security Management, provides a comprehensive understanding of the various tools and techniques that can be used to secure cloud-native systems, and how they can be integrated to provide a secure and compliant cloud-native environment. By the end of this chapter, you will be able to implement secure configuration management, secure image management, secure runtime management, secure network management, and Kubernetes admission controllers in their cloud-native systems.

Chapter 3, Cloud Native Application Security, provides an in-depth understanding of the security considerations involved in cloud-native application development. As the shift toward cloud-based application development continues to grow, it is crucial for software engineers, architects, and security professionals to understand the security implications and best practices to build secure cloud-native applications.

Chapter 4, Building an AppSec Culture, covers the key components of building an AppSec program that is both effective and efficient. It emphasizes the importance of understanding your organization’s security needs and goals and explores the key elements of an effective AppSec program, including risk assessment, security testing, and security training.

Chapter 5, Threat Modeling for Cloud Native, provides a comprehensive understanding of how to perform threat modeling for cloud-native environments, and how to use the information gathered to make informed decisions about security risks. It brings together all the concepts covered so far and applies them to the process of threat modeling.

Chapter 6, Securing the Infrastructure, explores various tools and strategies to secure your cloud-native infrastructure, from configuration to network security. It provides hands-on experience in implementing various security measures for Kubernetes, service mesh, and container security.

Chapter 7, Cloud Security Operations, offers practical insights and tools to establish and maintain a robust cloud security operations process. It explores innovative techniques to collect and analyze data points, including centralized logging, cloud-native observability tools, and monitoring with Prometheus and Grafana.

Chapter 8, DevSecOps Practices for Cloud Native, delves into the various aspects of DevSecOps, focusing on Infrastructure as Code (IaC), policy as code, and Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) platforms. This chapter will teach you in detail about automating most of the processes you learned in the previous chapters. By the end of this chapter, you will have a comprehensive understanding of these concepts and the open source tools that aid in implementing DevSecOps practices.

Chapter 9, Legal and Compliance, aims to bridge the gap between the technical skills and the legal and compliance aspects in the world of cloud-native software security. This chapter provides you with a comprehensive understanding of the laws, regulations, and standards that govern your work. By the end of this chapter, you will not only gain knowledge about the key U.S. privacy and security laws but also learn how to analyze these laws from a security engineer’s perspective.

Chapter 10, Cloud Native Vendor Management and Security Certifications, dives deep into the world of cloud vendor management and security certifications, revealing practical tools and strategies to build strong vendor relationships that underpin secure cloud operations. By the end of this chapter, you will understand the various risks associated with cloud vendors and how to assess a vendor’s security posture effectively.

To get the most out of this book

Before starting with this book, it is expected that you have a preliminary understanding of cloud-native technologies such as Kubernetes and Terraform. This book was written to explain security solutions possible using the following cloud-native tools, and so it is expected that you should adopt a security mindset when learning about the tools or using them. This book has a lot of examples and references for you to follow and implement; it is expected that you don’t use the code, as provided, verbatim, as each environment is different. Instead, approach each chapter carefully, and apply your learnings in your own environment. I hope that you spend more time learning about the tool itself, as that provides a holistic understanding of what this book aims to achieve – cloud-native security.

For certain tools, where the installation guide is a little complex, steps and tutorials are included within each chapter; however, you are strongly advised to follow the official documentation to install the tools as listed in the preceding table before trying the hands-on tutorials.

If you are using the digital version of this book, we advise you to type the code yourself or access the code from the book’s GitHub repository (a link is available in the next section). Doing so will help you avoid any potential errors related to the copying and pasting of code.

Download the example code files

You can download the example code files for this book from GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Cloud-Native-Software-Security-Handbook. If there’s an update to the code, it will be updated in the GitHub repository.

We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

Code in text: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: You should receive an error message indicating that the namespace must have the environment label. Update the test-namespace.yaml file to include the required label, and the namespace creation should be allowed.

A block of code is set as follows:

kind: NetworkPolicy

apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1

metadata:

  name: frontend-to-backend

spec:

  podSelector:

    matchLabels:

      app: backend

  policyTypes:

  - Ingress

  ingress:

  - from:

    - podSelector:

        matchLabels:

          app: frontend

    ports:

    - protocol: TCP

      port: 80

---

kind: NetworkPolicy

apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1

metadata:

  name: backend-to-database

spec:

  podSelector:

    matchLabels:

      app: database

  policyTypes:

  - Ingress

  ingress:

  - from:

    - podSelector:

        matchLabels:

          app: backend

    ports:

    - protocol: TCP

      port: 3306

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

$ kubectl apply -f networkPolicy.yaml

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For instance, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in bold. Here is an example: To create a new visualization, click on the Visualize tab in the left-hand menu. Click Create visualization to start creating a new visualization.

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Part 1: Understanding Cloud Native Technology and Security

In this part, you will learn about the foundations of cloud-native technologies, how to secure cloud-native systems, and the security considerations involved in cloud-native application development. By the end of this part, you will have a solid understanding of cloud-native technologies and the security challenges associated with them.

This part has the following chapters:

Chapter 1, Foundations of Cloud Native

Chapter 2, Cloud Native Systems Security Management

Chapter 3, Cloud Native Application Security

1

Foundations of Cloud Native

The adoption of cloud-native solutions is expected to surge in the upcoming years, and platforms such as Kubernetes continue to be the dominant players in this field. With this, the demand for cloud-native technologies and professionals will only continue to rise. This includes the crucial role of cloud-native security engineers and administrators in organizations. Let’s dive in and begin with the foundations of cloud-native.

This chapter serves as a comprehensive introduction for those who are familiar with public cloud vendors and their offerings but seek to understand how they integrate with vendor-agnostic cloud-native technologies. We will be exploring a few of the plethora of tools and platforms offered by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) and delving into the tools and strategies used throughout this book, providing a clear understanding of those platforms, their use cases and applications, and deploying them in real time.

In this chapter, we’re going to cover the following main topics:

Understanding the cloud-native world

Components for building a cloud-native app

Approach to thinking cloud-native

Understanding the cloud-native world

If you have been in the tech industry for a while, you are probably aware of the buzzword known as cloud-native. The more people you ask what it means, chances are, the more varied answers you will receive, and what’s bizarre is that all of them would be accurate in their own way. So, why the different answers? Well, the answer is simple – cloud-native technology and the stack is ever evolving, and each engineer, based on the use case of their cloud-native technology, would consider that in of itself to be cloud-native. However, based on the definition set out by the CNCF and my practical experience of using these technologies for the past many years, instead of defining a broader term of cloud-native computing, I would rather define what it means for an application to be cloud-native:

Cloud-native is the architectural style for any application that makes this application cloud-deployable as a loosely coupled formation of singular services that is optimized for automation using DevOps practices.

Let’s delve into understanding what that means in the industry. Cloud-native is an application design style that enables engineers to deploy any software in the cloud as each service. These services are optimized for automation using DevOps practices such as Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) and Infrastructure as Code (IaC). This approach allows for faster development, testing, and deployment of applications in the cloud, making it easier for organizations to scale and adapt to changing business needs. Additionally, the use of microservices and containerization in cloud-native architecture allows for greater flexibility and resiliency in the event of service failures. Overall, cloud-native architecture is designed to take full advantage of the cloud’s capabilities and provide a more efficient and effective way to build and deploy applications.

Why consider using cloud-native architecture?

I have always found the best way to approach any problem is to start with why. As for our current endeavor, it is prudent to think about why we would even care about thinking of a different approach to building our applications when we can get away with the current style of development. While you wouldn’t be completely wrong, there are some pretty strong arguments to be made otherwise. While we can address the need for this architecture, further for now, we can try contemplating the benefits of development. A few of them are listed as follows:

Scalability: One of the primary benefits of cloud-native architecture is the ability to easily scale applications horizontally and vertically, to meet changing demands. This is particularly important for applications that experience fluctuating levels of traffic as it allows for resources to be allocated in real time, without the need for manual intervention.

Flexibility: Cloud-native architecture also provides greater flexibility in terms of where and how applications are deployed. Applications can be deployed across multiple cloud providers or on-premises, depending on the needs of the organization, including but not limited to the organization’s compliance policies, business continuity, disaster recovery playbooks, and more.

Cost savings: Cloud-native architecture can lead to cost savings as well. By taking advantage of the pay-as-you-go pricing model offered by cloud providers, organizations only pay for the resources they use, rather than having to invest in expensive infrastructure upfront. Additionally, the ability to scale resources up and down can help reduce the overall cost of running applications.

Improved security: Cloud-native architecture also offers improved security for applications. Cloud providers typically offer a range of security features, such as encryption (such as AWS KMS, which is used for encryption key management and cryptographic signing) and multi-factor authentication, which can be applied to applications. Additionally, the use of containerization and microservices can help isolate and secure individual components of an application.

Faster deployment: Cloud-native architecture allows for faster deployment of applications. Containerization, for example, allows you to package applications and dependencies together, which can then be easily deployed to a cloud environment. Frameworks such as GitOps and other IaC solutions help significantly reduce the time and effort required to deploy new applications or updates.

Improved resilience: Cloud-native architecture can also help improve the resilience of applications. By using techniques such as load balancing and automatic failover, applications can be designed to continue running even in the event of a failure. This helps ensure that applications remain available to users, even in the event of disruption.

Better performance: Cloud-native architecture can lead to better performance for applications. By using cloud providers’ global networks, applications can be deployed closer to users, reducing latency and improving the overall user experience. Additionally, the use of containerization and microservices can help improve the performance of the individual components of an application.

Improved collaboration: Cloud-native architecture can also improve collaboration among developers. By using cloud-based development tools and platforms, developers can work together more easily and efficiently, regardless of their location. Additionally, the use of containerization and microservices can help promote collaboration among teams by breaking down applications into smaller, more manageable components.

Better monitoring: Cloud-native architecture can also enable better monitoring of applications. Cloud providers typically offer a range of monitoring tools, such as real-time metrics and log analysis, that can be used to track the performance and usage of applications. This can help organizations quickly identify and resolve any issues that may arise.

Better business outcomes: All the aforementioned benefits can lead to better business outcomes. Cloud-native architecture can help organizations deploy new applications, improve the performance and availability of existing applications, and reduce the overall cost of running applications quickly and easily. This can help organizations stay competitive, improve customer satisfaction, and achieve their business goals.

Essentially, there is no silver bullet when it comes to architecting cloud-native applications – the method of architecture heavily depends on the primal stage of defining factors of the application use cases, such as the following:

Scalability requirements: How much traffic and usage is the application expected to handle and how quickly does it need to scale to meet changing demands?

Performance needs: What are the performance requirements of the application and how do they impact the architecture?

Security considerations: What level of security is required for the application and how does it impact the architecture?

Compliance requirements: Are there any specific compliance regulations that the application must adhere to and how do they impact the architecture?

Deployment considerations: How and where will the application be deployed? Will it be deployed across multiple cloud providers, availability zones, or on-premises?

Resilience and fault-tolerance: How should the architecture be designed to handle service failures and ensure high availability?

Operational requirements: How should the architecture be designed to facilitate monitoring, logging, tracing, and troubleshooting of the application in production so that compliance policies such as service-level indicators (SLIs), service-level objectives (SLOs), and error budgets can be applied to the telemetry data that’s been collected?

Cost and budget: What is the budget for the application and how does it impact the architecture?

Future scalability and extensibility: How should the architecture be designed to allow for future scalability and extensibility of the application?

Integration with existing systems: How should the architecture be designed to integrate with existing systems and data sources?

While we will discuss a few of those factors in detail in