Kubernetes Security Best Practices for 2024

Cluster Hardening

1. Control Plane Security

# Audit policy
apiVersion: audit.k8s.io/v1
kind: Policy
rules:
  - level: Metadata
    resources:
      - group: ""
        resources: ["secrets", "configmaps"]
  - level: RequestResponse
    resources:
      - group: ""
        resources: ["pods/exec", "pods/portforward"]

2. Network Policies

apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: NetworkPolicy
metadata:
  name: default-deny
spec:
  podSelector: {}
  policyTypes:
    - Ingress
    - Egress

Runtime Security

• Falco – Runtime threat detection
• Tracee – eBPF-based runtime security
• KubeArmor – Cloud-native runtime enforcement

Supply Chain Security

• Sigstore/Cosign – Container signing
• SBOM – Software Bill of Materials with Syft
• Admission Controllers – Kyverno, OPA Gatekeeper

Monitoring & Compliance

• kube-bench – CIS Benchmark checks
• kube-hunter – Penetration testing
• Popeye – Cluster sanitizer

Security is a journey, not a destination.