Magalix K8s Policy Packs Cover CIS, MITRE ATT&CK, PCI DSS

Magalix Policy Enforcement Platform

Magalix policy enforcement platform (PEP) is a robust and scalable platform that allows security teams to build and enforce policies that cover their organization's security, compliance, and operational needs. Magalix PEP lets administrators build their own security policy or apply any of the built-in customizable policies at any stage of the software development lifecycle. DevOps and Security engineers can use Magalix to analyze metrics and compliance policies; integrate into CI/CD pipeline in order to provide rapid feedback, and generate extensive security and compliance posture reports.

The Magalix PE has over 100 built-in templates with which operators can quickly write and apply security policies - alternatively, built-in policies within the platform can be applied to identify and generate reports regarding improvements in security, network, and resource allocation for cloud security posture management (CSPM).

CIS Benchmarks for Kubernetes Policy Pack

What is it?

Kubernetes is the most widely used container orchestration platform by organizations and continues to grow in adoption. However, due to its complexity, there have been widespread security concerns regarding the platform. In 2017, the center for internet security (CIS), dedicated to identifying, developing, and validating cyber defense best practices, developed guidelines to address these security concerns. 

The CIS Benchmarks for Kubernetes are a comprehensive set of recommendations for configuring Kubernetes, intended to provide businesses with a way of establishing secure Kubernetes clusters. The CIS Benchmarks for Kubernetes define over 120 guidelines that apply to both master and worker nodes. The recommendations apply to control plane components like the Controller Manager and API Server; and also components of each worker node like kubelet, kube-proxy, and container network interfaces. 

Magalix CIS Kubernetes policy pack provides automated monitoring, discovery, reporting, and remediation, and audit of these guidelines and is designed to address all security concerns of any organization using Kubernetes.  Magalix’s CIS benchmarks for the Kubernetes policy pack pinpoint the root cause of a violation, rapidly allowing an operator to reassess the violating entities. 

Why is it Important for Organizations to Adopt?

The CIS Benchmarks for Kubernetes provides prescriptive guidelines for establishing a secure configuration posture and is an excellent first step for organizations to secure their infrastructure and strengthen their Kubernetes environments.

The CIS Benchmarks for Kubernetes policy pack helps teams safeguard their Kubernetes infrastructure and meet regulatory standards while saving time and resources. By executing these policies against their Kubernetes cluster, organizations can rapidly determine which controls are in breach, which entities are violating them, and what needs to be done to strengthen the environment. This in essence allows team members to be productive while guaranteeing the security and compliance of their Kubernetes infrastructure. 

MITRE ATT&CK Matrix Policies for Kubernetes

What is it? 

Attacks against Kubernetes clusters and containers housed in them are a genuine concern for enterprises due to the complexity of Kubernetes and the absence of effective security measures. With the threat landscape rapidly evolving, understanding security concerns and main attack vectors in Kubernetes is crucial for any organization.

The MITRE ATT&CK framework is a detailed knowledge base of tactics and techniques used by adversaries to infiltrate an environment and carry out an attack. This framework helps organizations understand the attack surface of their environments and ensure they have the right detection and mitigation strategies in place to address these risks.

The MITRE ATT&CK Framework is a great guideline for organizations to use when establishing a security baseline. With Magalix MITRE ATT&CK Matrix Policies, each ATT&CK technique is mapped to a policy, allowing an organization to readily validate their security posture against industry best practices without additional configuration. 

The Magalix MITRE ATT&CK Matrix Policies for Kubernetes provide reports that help an organization understand the state of their Kubernetes clusters with regards to the MITRE ATT&CK Framework. The reports identify the policies that cover a control, the state of each control, the policies being violated by any control, and the exact entities violating each control.

Why is it Important for Organizations to Adopt?

The MITRE ATT&CK framework helps an organization to harden its cluster security with a layered defence approach. Disrupting cyber-attacks involves several stages of the attack lifecycle. If they cannot successfully exploit vulnerabilities, they cannot penetrate and will not obtain remote control over the cluster. 

With Magalix MITRE ATT&CK policies for Kubernetes, organizations can instantly enforce policy guardrails for Kubernetes security; reduce risks and delays associated with Kubernetes deployment, and continuously monitor all CI/CD pipelines to ensure that no violations take place. Magalix Platform immediately notifies the organization if there’s a violation that puts the infrastructure at risk and thus allows all teams to carry out their work seamlessly without fear of attack. 

Magalix Kubernetes PCI DSS Compliance Policies

What is it?

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) must be followed by businesses in the fintech industry that handle payment cards. Failure to comply leads to reduced public trust and loss of a critical certification. 

Kubernetes is well known for providing the agility needed by fintech enterprises in software development. However, this platform is prone to security risks and PCI DSS compliance is challenging when operating on the Kubernetes network. Magalix understood this challenge and as a result, rolled out the Magalix Kubernetes PCI DSS Compliance Policies as part of its extensive Magalix Policy Library. 

PCI DSS Compliance has 12 key requirements and 78 base requirements, all considered best security practices. Making a Kubernetes system comply with the PCI DSS can be a manual and indeed tedious process. However, Magalix PCI DSS compliance policies provide a one-to-one mapping of policies to each of the 12 key PCI requirements. 

By doing this, Magalix allows organizations to easily understand the various PCI requirements and the components of their Kubernetes cluster affected by these requirements. By mapping policies to PCI requirements, Magalix system is able to provide a reliable report of the state of the Kubernetes clusters, allowing the organization to better understand their security posture in real time.

Why is it Important for Organizations to Adopt?

For any fintech dealing with customer card details, trust is a currency that cannot be traded lightly, and as such the optimum must be done to protect customer data. PCI compliance is a must in light of this and the nature of the k8s ecosystem makes this process manual and of course tedious. 

With Magalix, identifying the areas to cover becomes easier and this fastracks PCI DSS compliance initiatives. Magalix PCI DSS compliance policies quickly let an organization know the components that fall under PCI, what’s impacted, and what should be prioritized when securing cardholder data. Of course, the whole process is automated, allowing the organization to focus efforts on other aspects of work while resting assured they are in compliance with PCI guidelines. 

Conclusion

Securing any Kubernetes network as well as complying with standards can be hectic to achieve and misconfigurations will lead to security breaches. Magalix Policy Enforcement Platform has 100s out-of-the-box policies (such as those described here) and templates that ease the stress for an organization and let them hit the ground running.