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Scenario #256
Security
K8s v1.23, AWS EKS
Insufficient Encryption for In-Transit Data
Sensitive data was transmitted in plaintext between services, exposing it to potential eavesdropping and data breaches.
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What Happened
Some internal communications between services in the cluster were not encrypted, which exposed sensitive information during transit. This could have been exploited by attackers using tools to intercept traffic.
Diagnosis Steps
- 1Analyzed service-to-service communication and discovered that some APIs were being called over HTTP rather than HTTPS.
- 2Monitored network traffic and observed unencrypted data in transit.
Root Cause
Lack of encryption in communication between internal services, resulting in unprotected data being transmitted over the network.
Fix/Workaround
• Configured all services to communicate over HTTPS using TLS encryption.
• Implemented mutual TLS authentication for all pod-to-pod communications within the cluster.Lessons Learned
Never allow sensitive data to be transmitted in plaintext across the network. Always enforce encryption.
How to Avoid
- 1Use Kubernetes network policies to enforce HTTPS communication.
- 2Implement and enforce mutual TLS authentication between services.