Best practices for pod security in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

As you develop and run applications in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), the security of your pods is a key consideration. Your applications should be designed for the principle of least number of privileges required. Keeping private data secure is top of mind for customers. You don't want credentials like database connection strings, keys, or secrets and certificates exposed to the outside world where an attacker could take advantage of those secrets for malicious purposes. Don't add them to your code or embed them in your container images. This approach would create a risk for exposure and limit the ability to rotate those credentials as the container images will need to be rebuilt.

This best practices article focuses on how to secure pods in AKS. You learn how to:

• Use pod security context to limit access to processes and services or privilege escalation
• Authenticate with other Azure resources using Microsoft Entra Workload ID
• Request and retrieve credentials from a digital vault such as Azure Key Vault

You can also read the best practices for cluster security and for container image management.

Secure pod access to resources

Best practice guidance - To run as a different user or group and limit access to the underlying node processes and services, define pod security context settings. Assign the least number of privileges required.

For your applications to run correctly, pods should run as a defined user or group and not as root. The securityContext for a pod or container lets you define settings such as runAsUser or fsGroup to assume the appropriate permissions. Only assign the required user or group permissions, and don't use the security context as a means to assume additional permissions. The runAsUser, privilege escalation, and other Linux capabilities settings are only available on Linux nodes and pods.

When you run as a non-root user, containers cannot bind to the privileged ports under 1024. In this scenario, Kubernetes Services can be used to disguise the fact that an app is running on a particular port.

A pod security context can also define additional capabilities or permissions for accessing processes and services. The following common security context definitions can be set:

• allowPrivilegeEscalation defines if the pod can assume root privileges. Design your applications so this setting is always set to false.
• Linux capabilities let the pod access underlying node processes. Take care with assigning these capabilities. Assign the least number of privileges needed. For more information, see Linux capabilities.
• SELinux labels is a Linux kernel security module that lets you define access policies for services, processes, and filesystem access. Again, assign the least number of privileges needed. For more information, see SELinux options in Kubernetes

The following example pod YAML manifest sets security context settings to define:

• Pod runs as user ID 1000 and part of group ID 2000
• Can't escalate privileges to use root
• Allows Linux capabilities to access network interfaces and the host's real-time (hardware) clock

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: security-context-demo
spec:
  securityContext:
    fsGroup: 2000
  containers:
    - name: security-context-demo
      image: mcr.microsoft.com/oss/nginx/nginx:1.15.5-alpine
      securityContext:
        runAsUser: 1000
        allowPrivilegeEscalation: false
        capabilities:
          add: ["NET_ADMIN", "SYS_TIME"]

Work with your cluster operator to determine what security context settings you need. Try to design your applications to minimize additional permissions and access the pod requires. There are additional security features to limit access using AppArmor and seccomp (secure computing) that can be implemented by cluster operators. For more information, see Secure container access to resources.

Limit credential exposure

Best practice guidance - Don't define credentials in your application code. Use managed identities for Azure resources to let your pod request access to other resources. A digital vault, such as Azure Key Vault, should also be used to store and retrieve digital keys and credentials. Pod-managed identities are intended for use with Linux pods and container images only.

To limit the risk of credentials being exposed in your application code, avoid the use of fixed or shared credentials. Credentials or keys shouldn't be included directly in your code. If these credentials are exposed, the application needs to be updated and redeployed. A better approach is to give pods their own identity and way to authenticate themselves, or automatically retrieve credentials from a digital vault.

Use a Microsoft Entra Workload ID

A workload identity is an identity used by an application running on a pod that can authenticate itself against other Azure services that support it, such as Storage or SQL. It integrates with the capabilities native to Kubernetes to federate with external identity providers. In this security model, the AKS cluster acts as token issuer, Microsoft Entra ID uses OpenID Connect to discover public signing keys and verify the authenticity of the service account token before exchanging it for a Microsoft Entra token. Your workload can exchange a service account token projected to its volume for a Microsoft Entra token using the Azure Identity client library using the Azure SDK or the Microsoft Authentication Library (MSAL).

For more information about workload identities, see Configure an AKS cluster to use Microsoft Entra Workload ID with your applications

Use Azure Key Vault with Secrets Store CSI Driver

Using the Microsoft Entra Workload ID enables authentication against supporting Azure services. For your own services or applications without managed identities for Azure resources, you can still authenticate using credentials or keys. A digital vault can be used to store these secret contents.

When applications need a credential, they communicate with the digital vault, retrieve the latest secret contents, and then connect to the required service. Azure Key Vault can be this digital vault. The simplified workflow for retrieving a credential from Azure Key Vault using pod managed identities is shown in the following diagram:

With Key Vault, you store and regularly rotate secrets such as credentials, storage account keys, or certificates. You can integrate Azure Key Vault with an AKS cluster using the Azure Key Vault provider for the Secrets Store CSI Driver. The Secrets Store CSI driver enables the AKS cluster to natively retrieve secret contents from Key Vault and securely provide them only to the requesting pod. Work with your cluster operator to deploy the Secrets Store CSI Driver onto AKS worker nodes. You can use a Microsoft Entra Workload ID to request access to Key Vault and retrieve the secret contents needed through the Secrets Store CSI Driver.

Next steps

This article focused on how to secure your pods. To implement some of these areas, see the following articles:

• Use Microsoft Entra Workload ID for Azure resources with AKS
• Integrate Azure Key Vault with AKS