Kubernetes security tools protect your cluster and workloads by reporting misconfigurations, vulnerabilities, and real-time threats.
Kubernetes has become the platform of choice for deploying cloud-native applications, but its limited built-in security controls mean external solutions are needed. To achieve complete coverage against security risks, you must think about your cluster’s control plane, Nodes, and running containers.
In this round-up, we’ll share 15 of our favorite Kubernetes security tools. We’ll include a wide variety of options for different use cases, from scanning Kubernetes manifests pre-deployment to solutions that offer continual runtime security.
Let’s start by taking a closer look at what Kubernetes security involves.
Kubernetes security tools automate the process of securing a Kubernetes cluster. They help you find and fix issues that could make your cluster vulnerable to intrusion, infiltration, and compliance breaches. Some tools may build upon existing Kubernetes security mechanisms, while others are standalone options that run independently of your cluster.
Using the correct Kubernetes security tools matters because Kubernetes clusters have a large attack surface. Many different components are involved, from the cluster control plane to compute Nodes, networking components, and deployment processes.
Clusters are also highly dynamic: Resources are frequently added and removed as you scale your deployments. This makes it challenging to secure Kubernetes using standard tools.
The 4C model is a popular way of thinking about Kubernetes security. It describes the importance of securing your cloud accounts, cluster, containers, and code. Choosing a combination of tools that covers all these areas helps ensure you’re fully protected.
It’s also important to use a variety of tool types, including static scanners you can run in your CI/CD pipelines to check your config files before you deploy and tools that run in your cluster to provide real-time threat detection.
Now you’ve got a picture of what Kubernetes security tools can offer, let’s look at some of the most popular options currently available in the ecosystem. This isn’t an exhaustive list, but we’ve included a wide range of solutions for common 4C use cases.
The best Kubernetes security tools include:
Spacelift is an IaC orchestration platform. It unifies your IaC tools, including Terraform, Pulumi, Ansible, and more, so you can manage them all in one place. The platform lets you safely automate infrastructure provisioning and configuration tasks, including for cloud Kubernetes clusters.
Spacelift includes powerful security and governance features that protect your workflows and resources. For instance, OPA-powered policies let you control precisely when your IaC runs execute and which changes they can make.
This prevents unauthorized or insecure configs from reaching your Kubernetes infrastructure. Spacelift also includes automated drift detection and resolution features to ensure your clusters stay in their expected states throughout their life.
Key features of Spacelift
- Orchestrate IaC tools to unify infrastructure management.
- Use code-based policies to enforce security and compliance requirements.
- Detect and resolve potentially dangerous infrastructure configuration drift.
Website: https://spacelift.io
Read more: Integrating Security Tools With Spacelift Using Custom Inputs
Kubescape is an open-source Kubernetes security platform with both static and runtime components. It can check your Kubernetes YAML files and Helm charts for security issues before you deploy and scan your cluster to detect live misconfigurations and vulnerabilities.
Kubescape includes built-in support for several common security frameworks, including SOC 2, the CIS Benchmarks, and the NSA/CISA’s Kubernetes hardening guidance. It integrates with popular CI/CD services and IDEs to support seamless use throughout the DevOps lifecycle.
# Scan a live cluster
$ kubescape scan
# Scan a YAML file
$ kubescape scan pod.yaml
# Validate a cluster against a specific security framework
$ kubescape scan framework <framework-name>Key features of Kubescape
- Scan Kubernetes YAML files and Helm charts for security issues.
- Find live vulnerabilities in Kubernetes clusters.
- Maintain compliance with security frameworks.
Website: https://kubescape.io
Falco is a cloud-native security tool that delivers runtime security protections for Kubernetes clusters and other environments. It uses eBPF and Linux kernel events to detect anomalous activity that could signal a threat.
Adding Falco to your cluster lets you automate your threat detection and stay informed of real-time issues as they happen. It also allows you to proactively respond to intrusion attempts and potential threats before they become live incidents. You can stream alerts to logs, HTTPS URLs, or gRPC API endpoints.
Key features of Falco
- Real-time threat detection
- Stream security events to external endpoints.
- Standardize security across Kubernetes and other cloud environments.
Website: https://falco.org
Checkov is an IaC static analysis engine. It supports Kubernetes manifests, Helm charts, and infrastructure tools like Terraform and CloudFormation.
You can use Checkov to strengthen your cluster’s security by scanning for misconfigurations before you deploy. The tool comes with built-in rulesets for common issues, but is easy to extend using code-based custom policies. It supports deep integration with DevOps workflows via IDE and CI/CD connections.
# Scan for misconfigurations in Kubernetes manifests in the `k8s` directory
$ checkov -d k8s/ --framework kubernetesKey features of Checkov
- Detect misconfigurations in Kubernetes manifests and Helm charts.
- Enforce custom security policies.
- Unify Kubernetes and IaC security.
Website: https://www.checkov.io
Cilium is one of the most popular Kubernetes CNI (Container Networking Interface) plugins. It implements core networking features in Kubernetes clusters, including Pod-to-Pod and Service communications.
Cilium emphasizes security and observability, including the ability to dynamically filter and inspect traffic passing through your cluster.
Cilium uses eBPF-based routing to achieve direct interaction with the Linux kernel. This provides deep visibility into network activity. You can enforce precise security policies to protect your cluster from malicious network traffic and intrusion attempts.
Key features of Cilium
- Secure Kubernetes networking layer
- Apply granular network traffic policies.
- Encrypt traffic between cluster services.
Website: https://cilium.io
Kube-Bench is a popular Kubernetes security tool from Aqua Security. It audits your cluster against the security best practices defined in the CIS Kubernetes Benchmark.
You can extend Kube-Bench with custom checks defined using a YAML-based syntax. Checks can use various operators to test specific aspects of your cluster’s configuration. Running Kube-Bench on a regular basis keeps you informed of your cluster’s security posture and can help you analyze the effects of changes.
# Scan a cluster
$ kube-bench run
# Scan a cluster using a specific CIS Benchmark version
$ kube-bench --benchmark cis-1.5Key features of Kube-Bench
- Scan Kubernetes clusters for security misconfigurations.
- Uses the CIS Kubernetes Benchmark
- Can be extended to run custom checks
Kube-Hunter is another Aqua Security tool that previously gained popularity. It’s a penetration testing tool that tries to exploit known Kubernetes vulnerabilities. Kube-Hunter actively probes your cluster in the same way an attacker might.
# Scan for possible vulnerabilities
$ kube-hunter
# Scan for possible vulnerabilities and attempt to actively exploit them
$ kube-hunter --active
# Scan a specific remote host
$ kube-hunter --active --remote node-1.k8s.example.comKube-Hunter is no longer in active development. As the last release was published over three years ago, its use isn’t encouraged with current Kubernetes versions. Similar features are available in Trivy, Aqua’s current-generation security scanning solution (see below).
Key features of Kube-Hunter
- Penetration testing for Kubernetes clusters
- Supports active exploitation attempts
- Covers a wide range of known vulnerabilities
Trivy is a versatile DevOps security platform that scans for IaC misconfigurations and known vulnerabilities in code repositories, container images, and Kubernetes clusters. It offers convenient coverage for several of the 4Cs of Kubernetes security, all in one tool.
Trivy’s Kubernetes scans cover your cluster’s control plane, config options, and deployed workloads such as Pods and Deployments. When scanning a resource like a Pod, Trivy also automatically scans the container image it uses. This gives you a more complete picture of the workload’s overall security.
# Scan a cluster and generate a summary report of problems
$ trivy kubernetes --report summary
# Scan a cluster without downloading and checking images
$ trivy kubernetes --skip-images --report summary
# Audit a cluster against the CIS Kubernetes Benchmark
$ trivy kubernetes --compliance k8s-cis-1.23 --report summaryKey features of Trivy
- Scan clusters for vulnerabilities and misconfigurations
- Also includes built-in container image and code repository scan capabilities
- Various report types and scanning options
KubeLinter is a tool that lints Kubernetes YAML files and Helm charts to ensure correctness. It verifies that your Kubernetes configs follow best practices, such as by ensuring Pods have an appropriate security context and include resource requests and limits.
# Lint a single YAML file
$ kube-linter lint pod.yaml
# Lint a directory of YAML files
$ kube-linter lint k8s/
# Lint while ignoring a specific check
$ kube-linter lint pod.yaml --exclude host-networkRunning KubeLinter within your CI/CD pipeline can help you prevent unsafe configurations from reaching your cluster. The tool runs over 50 built-in checks and supports extensions via custom scanning templates.
Key Features of KubeLinter
- Lint Kubernetes YAML manifests and Helm charts before you deploy
- Lightweight tool suitable for local use and CI/CD pipelines
- Supports custom checks based on provided templates
Website: https://docs.kubelinter.io
Open Policy Agent (OPA) is a policy-as-code engine that lets you define and enforce security requirements throughout your DevOps lifecycle. It can check whether your Kubernetes manifests meet the required standards by testing them against clearly defined conditions. Policies are written in OPA’s own expressive Rego language.
OPA is a versatile tool that often powers other Kubernetes and IaC policy solutions.
You can also run OPA directly in your CI/CD pipelines to prevent applying unsafe Kubernetes manifests, or use Gatekeeper to configure OPA as a validating admission webhook within your Kubernetes cluster. Because your policies are defined as code, you can easily version, maintain, and test them using GitOps techniques.
package kubernetes_team_id_label
import rego.v1
default allow := false
allow if input.review.object.metadata.labels.team_idKey features of Open Policy Agent
- Versatile policy-as-code engine
- Can be used as a Kubernetes validating admission webhook to reject non-compliant resources from your cluster
- Enables reliable enforcement of custom security policies
Website: https://www.openpolicyagent.org
Read more: Kubernetes with Open Policy Agent (OPA) & Gatekeeper
Istio is a service mesh solution that’s designed for Kubernetes. It manages traffic flows, observability, and security for the network services running within your cluster. You can use it to enforce key security rules at the service level.
Istio’s security capabilities include traffic encryption, policy-based access controls, and detailed auditing of service activity. It can run sidecar proxies alongside your services to intercept, filter, and manipulate service traffic before it reaches your applications.
Key features of Istio
- Secure-by-design service mesh solution
- Supports traffic encryption and fine-grained access controls
- Protects workloads by deploying sidecar proxies next to services
Website: https://istio.io
Anchore’s Grype is an SBOM-driven software supply chain security tool. It analyzes container images to find known vulnerabilities that could affect runtime security. Running it regularly helps you secure your Kubernetes cluster by eliminating container filesystem threats.
Grype indicates the severity of each detected vulnerability based on its CVSS and EPSS scores. The tool also flags vulnerabilities that are known to be actively exploited, based on data from CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) Catalog. Grype then outputs an overall risk score that reflects the vulnerability’s possible impact on your containers.
# Scan a container image
$ grype nginx:latest
# Exit with a status code of 1 when there's "high" severity findings
$ grype nginx:latest --fail-on high
# Exclude vulnerabilities that are reported to have been fixed
$ grype nginx:latest --only-notfixedKey features of Anchore Grype
- Scan container images for known vulnerabilities
- Also supports filesystem directory scans
- Works with all major operating system and programming language packages
Website: https://github.com/anchore/grype
KICS (Keeping Infrastructure as Code Secure) is an IaC static analysis tool developed by Checkmarx. It scans Kubernetes manifests, Helm charts, and IaC configs for security issues, misconfigurations, and compliance breaches. The tool is distributed as a Docker image for easy use in different environments.
KICS tests your resources against a series of queries. These cover common Kubernetes security issues and best practices, such as preventing the use of privileged container capabilities. You can add custom queries using the Rego policy language to enforce your own cluster security requirements.
Example:
# Scan the Kubernetes manifests in your "k8s" directory
$ docker run -t -v k8s:/data checkmarx/kics:latest scan -p /data -o /data/Key features of KICS
- Static analysis for Kubernetes configs and other IaC resources
- Customizable using Rego policies
- Includes plugins for popular CI/CD services
Website: https://kics.io
Terrascan is another IaC static analysis solution with Kubernetes support. It works with Kubernetes manifest files, Helm charts, and Kustomize resources and supports many different output formats including YAML, JSON, and JUnit XML.
Terrascan can be used as a Kubernetes admission controller to reject any non-compliant objects that may be added to your cluster. This maintains continuous security and compliance by preventing developers from applying changes that breach your Terrascan policies.
Example:
# Scan the Kubernetes files within your working directory
$ terrascan scan -i k8s
# Scan a Helm chart in the "helm" directory
$ terrascan scan -i helm -d helm/
# Scan using custom Rego policies
$ terrascan scan -i k8s -p policies/Key features of Terrascan
- Static analysis for Kubernetes resources, Dockerfiles, and IaC tools
- Can be used as a Kubernetes admission controller
- Customizable using OPA Rego policies
Website: https://runterrascan.io
Read more: What is Terrascan? Features, Use Cases & Custom Policies
Kyverno is a policy-as-code engine that’s designed for Kubernetes. It lets you continually enforce your security requirements using versatile policies defined as Kubernetes custom resources.
Compared with established alternatives like OPA, Kyverno takes a Kubernetes-native approach to policy management. It models policies as familiar Kubernetes YAML files, making it easy for operators to manage them using existing processes.
Kyverno includes a validating admission controller to prevent non-compliant resources from being deployed. It also provides mutation support to let you dynamically adjust the properties of new objects as they’re created, such as by removing risky fields or adding missing ones.
Key features of Kyverno
- Kubernetes-native policy-as-code engine
- Validates, mutates, generates, and sanitizes Kubernetes resources
- Uses Kubernetes custom resources to define policies using YAML
Website: https://kyverno.io
The tools we’ve highlighted above support your Kubernetes security posture through advanced static and runtime threat analysis. But it’s worth noting that Kubernetes includes various built-in features that also contribute to your cluster’s security:
- RBAC (role-based access control) lets you precisely manage which actions and resources are available to different cluster users.
- Network policies define whether Pods can communicate with each other, preventing a compromised Pod from interacting with others.
- Secrets enable you to safely store secure values like passwords, API keys, and tokens, then provide them to your workloads.
- Pod security standards and admission policies enforce required security settings for your cluster’s Pods, such as preventing the use of privileged containers.
These features let you enforce basic Kubernetes security requirements without using any extra tools.
However, they’re not enough to power scalable production operations alone. Without centralized tooling, for instance, it can be challenging to monitor and govern RBAC rules, network policies, and pod admission settings, and individual resources may remain vulnerable to misconfiguration if you don’t scan manifest files before you deploy.
Therefore, the most effective Kubernetes security implementations combine built-in features and external scan tools to achieve complete protection. This gives you in-depth defense by providing multiple layers of security throughout your cluster’s lifecycle.
Kubernetes security is a broad topic that spans your cloud accounts, cluster control planes, Nodes, and workloads. Fully securing a cluster requires complete coverage for all these surfaces.
The Kubernetes security tools highlighted in this article allow you to properly secure your Kubernetes environments using static scans, runtime threat detection, and continual policy enforcement. Combining multiple security tools in different roles, such as Kubescape, Falco, and Kyverno, can give your clusters the best protection against intrusion attempts and dangerous misconfigurations.
Because Kubernetes security is only as strong as your infrastructure’s defenses, it’s also crucial to properly secure your infrastructure workflows and IaC resources.
Spacelift enables you to reliably govern your cloud infrastructure using IaC automation. With centralized visibility, policy as code, and direct cloud integrations, Spacelift gives you everything you need to provision and configure Kubernetes infrastructure safely.
Manage Kubernetes easier and faster
Spacelift allows you to automate, audit, secure, and continuously deliver your infrastructure. It helps overcome common state management issues and adds several must-have features for infrastructure management.
![How to Deploy Helm Charts with Argo CD [Tutorial]](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fspaceliftio.wpcomstaging.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2024%2F02%2F340.-argo-cd-with-helm.png&w=3840&q=75)
