Building visibility and resilience across Kubernetes

Why Kubernetes Security and Monitoring Matter

Kubernetes has transformed how modern applications are deployed and scaled. Its flexibility and automation power innovation but also expand the attack surface. From control plane access to runtime drift, Kubernetes introduces layers of complexity that can obscure visibility if not properly monitored.

For security leaders, Kubernetes is both an opportunity and a risk. While it enables agility, it also decentralizes security responsibility across teams, tools, and cloud layers. Strong preventive controls like RBAC, Pod Security Standards, and NetworkPolicies reduce risk, but they’re only half the story. The real differentiator is continuous monitoring and observability: seeing what’s actually happening in real time.

In this blog, we’ll cover:

• The shared responsibility model between self-managed Kubernetes and managed Kubernetes services
• The key telemetry and log sources that drive visibility
• Real-world use cases and detection examples
• How to centralize observability for unified detection

Understanding Shared Responsibility

Just like database or cloud infrastructure monitoring, Kubernetes security begins with understanding who owns what. In a self-managed deployment, you’re responsible for the entire stack – from the control plane to worker nodes. In managed Kubernetes services (such as Amazon EKS, Azure AKS, or Google GKE), the cloud provider manages the control plane, but you remain accountable for workloads, nodes, networking, and observability.

Layer	Self-Managed Kubernetes	Managed Kubernetes
Control Plane (API, etcd, scheduler)	You manage and secure	Cloud provider manages
Worker Nodes	You manage	You manage
Network & Access	You enforce policies and segmentation	You enforce policies and segmentation
Logging & Observability	You implement collectors	You enable and forward logs
Runtime & Workload Security	You protect workloads	You protect workloads

Key takeaway: Cloud providers reduce operational overhead but do not eliminate your security responsibility. Visibility gaps often emerge when teams assume that managed services automatically log or secure everything – they don’t.

Securing Self-Managed Kubernetes

When you run your own Kubernetes clusters, you have full control – and full accountability.

This freedom brings flexibility but also the burden of securing every layer of the stack.

Best Practices

• Control Plane Protection: Restrict API server access, enforce mTLS, and patch frequently.
• Secrets Management: Encrypt secrets in etcd and use Sealed Secrets or Vault for sensitive data.
• Network Security: Apply NetworkPolicies to limit pod-to-pod communication and use mTLS.
• Runtime Defense: Employ runtime anomaly detection to flag abnormal container behavior.
• Audit & Compliance: Centralize audit logs for investigations and regulatory proof.
• Disaster Recovery: Automate etcd and persistent volume backups.

Because all components are under your control, log collection must be deliberate. Aggregate logs from:

• API server
• Authentication service
• Controller manager
• Scheduler
• Audit pipeline

A centralized observability solution allows correlation across these layers – essential for detecting malicious API calls or policy drift before it becomes an incident.

Securing Managed Kubernetes

Managed Kubernetes services simplify cluster management by outsourcing the control plane, but your workloads remain your responsibility. Cloud providers secure the API server, etcd, and certificates – yet customers must secure workloads, IAM/identity roles, node configurations, and observability.

Best Practices

• Cluster Configuration: Enable audit logging, restrict public API access, and prefer private endpoints.
• Access Control: Use cloud provider identity integration (IAM Roles for Service Accounts, Workload Identity, or Azure AD Pod Identity) with least privilege.
• Networking: Deploy clusters in private networks and enforce segmentation using security groups/firewall rules and NetworkPolicies.
• Node & Pod Security: Avoid privileged containers and host-level access.
• Observability: Forward API server, audit, and authenticator logs to your observability or SIEM platform.
• Image & Registry Security: Use trusted registries, scan images continuously, and block unverified builds.
• Backups & Updates: Automate snapshots and stay on the latest Kubernetes versions.
• Compliance Integration: Leverage cloud-native security services (GuardDuty, Security Center, Security Command Center) and audit trails for unified visibility.

Critical Telemetry: What to Monitor

Borrowing from database monitoring principles, Kubernetes monitoring also depends on ingesting the right signals.

Below are the foundational log sources that together provide a full picture of your cluster’s health and security posture.

Log Source	Purpose	Key Insight
Cloud Audit Logs	Records cloud platform API calls	Detect IAM misuse or privilege escalation
kube-apiserver	Captures all Kubernetes API requests	Identify unauthorized or high-risk actions
Authentication Logs	Track successful and failed access attempts	Spot brute-force or credential replay
Audit Logs	Chronicle cluster changes	Trace who modified what, when
Controller Manager	Manage state reconciliations	Detect unauthorized scaling or misconfigurations
Scheduler Logs	Show pod placement logic	Identify anomalies or resource drift

Example Threat Scenarios

• Unauthorized API Access: Unexpected DELETE /pods by a non-admin user.
• Privilege Escalation: IAM role elevation followed by RBAC modification.
• Data Exfiltration: Repeated GET /secrets requests with abnormal egress traffic.
• Runtime Abuse: Container spawns interactive shells or connects to external IPs.
• Policy Drift: NetworkPolicy deleted or replaced unexpectedly.

These are the same detection concepts database security teams apply to DML anomalies or privilege grants – but in Kubernetes, they span multiple telemetry sources.

Correlating Data: Real-World Use Cases

Like database monitoring, value emerges when you correlate events across systems.

Use Case 1: Identity Role Change + Kubernetes RoleBinding

A DevOps user assumes a new cloud identity role (cloud audit log) and immediately modifies an RBAC RoleBinding (Kubernetes audit log). This combination often signals privilege escalation.

Use Case 2: Suspicious Pod Execution

A container starts executing binaries not typically present in the image (runtime log), while the scheduler places it on an unusual node. This can indicate lateral movement or a compromised workload.

Use Case 3: Config Drift + Unauthorized Access

The controller manager logs show a new Deployment, while the API server logs multiple failed authentications from the same IP. Together, this may indicate automated exploitation or misused credentials.

Centralizing Observability

Fragmented logs are the biggest obstacle to Kubernetes security.

Control plane, identity, network, and runtime data often live in silos – making correlation difficult and delaying response.

Best Practices for Unified Visibility

• Ingest logs into a single platform – such as Coralogix.
• Correlate across layers: link Kubernetes audit data with cloud audit trails and runtime events.
• Visualize risk: build dashboards for RBAC changes, failed authentications, and abnormal API calls.
• Suppress noise: use baselines to filter expected patterns, highlighting only deviations.

Executive value: Centralized observability enables governance – turning logs into measurable assurance for compliance, resilience, and audit readiness.

From Zero to Full Visibility: Coralogix Kubernetes Extension

The Coralogix Kubernetes extension delivers instant security monitoring with pre-built alerts for common threat scenarios and comprehensive dashboards that visualize your cluster’s security posture. No complex configuration required – start detecting anomalies and tracking compliance within minutes.

Conclusion

Kubernetes security isn’t just a technical checklist – it’s a visibility and governance challenge.

Self-managed clusters give full control but full accountability; managed Kubernetes services offload control plane operations but not responsibility. By aligning preventive controls, continuous monitoring, and centralized observability, organizations gain true operational resilience. For CISOs, that means shifting from reactive to proactive – transforming Kubernetes from a potential blind spot into a measurable pillar of enterprise security posture.