Introduction to Threat Modeling

Security is more important than ever, and Kubernetes is no exception. Fortunately, there's a lot we can do to secure Kubernetes, and we'll see some ways in the next chapter. However, before doing that, it's a good idea to model some of the common threats.

Threat modeling

Threat modeling is the process of identifying vulnerabilities so we can put measures in place to prevent and mitigate them. This chapter introduces the popular STRIDE model and shows how we can apply it to Kubernetes.

STRIDE defines six potential threat categories:

• Spoofing

• Tampering

• Repudiation

• Information disclosure

• Denial of service

• Elevation of privilege

While the model is good and provides a structured way to assess things, no model guarantees to cover all threats.

For the rest of this chapter, we’ll look at each of the six threat categories. For each one, we’ll give a quick description and then look at some of the ways it applies to Kubernetes.

The chapter doesn’t try to cover everything. The goal is to give you ideas and get you started.