The introduction of containers and micro-service architectures have changed the way we develop, deploy, and run our applications. Not only has this changed application development, but it’s also created some visibility challenges for application security. Move those applications to the cloud and we only amplify those challenges. How do we architect our cloud services and applications for security, but also resilience, to thwart attackers?
Let’s start with some of the application challenges. Where do we collect our security telemetry for the application? Kubernetes, the container orchestrator, is one source for log data. The container is also a source, but collecting those logs requires either instrumentation within the container, a privileged container, or a kernel module. We can also monitor endpoints and network traffic to fill the gaps in log data.
Now, let’s move that application into AWS Fargate. We lose the privileged container, kernel module, and endpoint, leaving us container instrumentation and network traffic. Is this enough to protect our application?
We recently interviewed Jeff Deininger, Principal Cloud Security Engineer at ExtraHop, on Enterprise Security Weekly to discuss how cloud defenders can thwart attacks against resilient services, including those running on AWS Fargate. Jeff discusses the various deployment options, including sidecar containers and container instrumentation, that allows ExtraHop to gather network telemetry from serverless containerized workloads . Once collected, ExtraHop’s native behavior analysis and anomaly detection capabilities are now used to detect attacks.
During the interview, Jeff used a simulated attack to demonstrate how advanced threat detection works with commonplace architectural elements to deny attackers the crucial traction needed to establish a foothold at the beginning of a campaign, leaving attackers feeling like they are inescapably ‘walking on ice’.
To see how ExtraHop and their Network Detection and Response (NDR) capabilities can protect your cloud applications, watch the technical segment on Enterprise Security Weekly here, watch their on-demand webcast, Extending the Enterprise Network for Remote Workers, or visit securityweekly.com/extrahop for more information.
