Secrets Management in Kubernetes

Secrets Management in Kubernetes

Kubernetes Secrets provide a mechanism for storing sensitive information like passwords, tokens, and certificates. However, default Secret handling has security limitations that organizations must understand. Secrets are base64 encoded but not encrypted by default, stored in etcd alongside other cluster data. Without additional controls, anyone with access to etcd or sufficient RBAC permissions can read all Secrets. This design requires additional security layers for production use.

Encrypting Secrets at rest in etcd provides essential protection against disk-level attacks. Kubernetes supports encryption providers that integrate with key management services. However, encryption at rest doesn't protect against API-level access; proper RBAC policies must restrict Secret access to authorized users and workloads. The principle of least privilege applies strongly to Secret access, with workloads receiving access only to required Secrets.

External secret management solutions like HashiCorp Vault, AWS Secrets Manager, or Azure Key Vault provide enhanced security capabilities. These solutions offer features like dynamic secret generation, automatic rotation, and detailed audit logging. Integration typically occurs through operators or mutating webhooks that inject secrets at runtime. While adding complexity, external secret management provides security capabilities essential for regulated environments.