Rethink PKI for Kubernetes: Scalable Security at KubeCon Salt Lake City

2024-11-07

PKI matters more than ever for Kubernetes. In today’s cloud-native, DevOps-driven world, public key infrastructure (PKI) and signing solutions are foundational to building secure, reliable software supply chains and establishing trust in Kubernetes. PKI has become as critical as our morning coffee, for everything from enforcing identity to ensuring software integrity. If you are not careful, a caffeine crash could lead to heavy fines and a lost reputation.

Yet, deploying PKI often brings hidden complexities. Platform engineers must wade through a sea of options: built-in approaches, DIY PKI setups, open-source tools, and maybe even the “I will get to it later” approach. The hidden costs of these setups? Security/Compliance gaps, integration issues, and a whole lot of extra troubleshooting. At Keyfactor, we offer a unique combination of PKI and Signing expertise, along with mature, open-source, enterprise-grade solutions that allow you to start simple and scale as needed for compliance or advanced resilience. We have been doing this for over 20 years.

Current PKI Challenges Faced by Kubernetes Users

Complexity and Fragmentation

Let’s face it—many teams approach PKI as if they are choosing what is closest at hand or seems to have the least friction at that moment in time. This approach often leads to fragmented systems, resulting in security silos and a "just good enough" solution that fails to scale as complexity increases.

Automation and Crypto Agility Gaps

In Kubernetes environments, certificates and keys need constant issuance, management, and renewals. Without robust automation and crypto agility, platform teams will face the prospect of expired certificates, outdated crypto, service outages, or even worse, manual renewal processes.

Workload Identities in SPIFFE/SPIRE

Service-to-service communication in Kubernetes is made more secure with mTLS and workload identities using SPIFFE. Yet, many teams struggle with setting up and managing these identities. The result? Potentially insecure communication between services, non-compliance with security policies, lost developer time, and security teams constantly troubleshooting identity issues.

Software Supply Chain Security

With CI/CD pipelines, container signing and artifact attestation are becoming non-negotiable for security. The struggle to implement secure signing solutions is real. Each artifact should ideally carry a proof of origin, from container registries to source code repositories. Without solid, secure software supply chain tools and a signing solution, pipeline security can feel like balancing a house of cards.

What if PKI was not a patchwork of tools but a unified, scalable solution?

The answer: End-to-End Integration

With Keyfactor, PKI for Kubernetes isn’t just another CA bolted onto your infrastructure. Our solutions support end-to-end cryptographic security, from root CA to intermediate CAs to certificate issuance and management. This means you can stop stitching solutions together and instead implement an enterprise-proven, mature PKI that’s compliant and reliable—no more shortcuts or makeshift fixes.

Join Us at KubeCon SLC for a Deep Dive and Demos!

At this year’s KubeCon in Salt Lake City, we want to invite you to learn more about:

mTLS certificates in Service Mesh (Istio): We will walk you through configuring EJBCA and cert-manager as trusted, scalable PKI for Istio multi-cluster service meshes. Our hands-on guide shows how to issue, rotate, and manage certificates efficiently while meeting compliance and security needs.

Key Takeaways:

How to implement EJBCA with cert-manager for robust, policy-driven PKI in Istio.
Practical steps for creating resilient workload identities and ensuring secure communication across clusters.
Proven methods to avoid common PKI mistakes and strengthen your security posture.

EJBCA, combined with cert-manager, offers a solution for managing all your mesh certificates at scale, ensuring that your Istio service mesh PKI is both secure and compliant.

Integrating SPIFFE/SPIRE with EJBCA for Trusted Workload Identity: We will discuss configuring SPIFFE/SPIRE to use the EJBCA UpstreamAuthority Plugin. This integration empowers SPIRE to issue workload identity certificates as part of a trusted, enterprise-grade PKI managed by EJBCA.

You will learn how to:

Leverage the SPIRE implementation of the SPIFFE framework to provide secure workload identities for services within Kubernetes.
Configure SPIRE to issue workload identity certificates backed by EJBCA, ensuring these identities align with a robust PKI.

This is a must-see if you look to strengthen workload security and manage identities at scale with EJBCA PKI.

Software Supply Chain Security (CI/CD Pipelines): In your CI/CD pipelines, Keyfactor offers signing solutions for containers and other artifacts, simplifying the enforcement of secure code and artifact signing policies from start to finish. When combined with solutions like Chainloop that leverage standard open-source initiatives such as in-toto attestations, SigStore, and SLSA, securing software supply chains becomes more accessible. At KubeCon, we will demonstrate how we integrate with Chainloop, and you can start exploring our joint solution right away. Additionally, you will learn how SignServer and EJBCA can help achieve enterprise-grade PKI and signing.

Enterprise-Level Control with Open-Source Flexibility: We get it—sometimes you want the control and flexibility of open-source, but you also need the resilience, compliance, and scalability of an enterprise solution. Keyfactor provides the best of both worlds, letting you leverage open-source flexibility with enterprise-level controls. Segment PKI, integrate hardware security modules (HSM), secure audit logs, and harmonize policies for PKI and signing across all deployment environments (on-prem, containerized, cloud, SaaS). With Keyfactor, you are set up for secure, scalable PKI that works anywhere.

Conclusion: Building a More Secure, Manageable Kubernetes PKI

PKI for Kubernetes does not have to be complex, fragmented, or full of compromise. With integrated, mature tools from Keyfactor, it is easier to implement, scale, and secure PKI across your Kubernetes infrastructure. It’s time to move past siloed approaches or DIY struggles and explore Keyfactor’s offerings to make Kubernetes security scalable, resilient, and future-proof.

Invitation to Learn More at KubeCon SLC

Looking to meet with the Keyfactor team and learn more? Stop by booth R40 next week at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon. If you'd like to schedule time to meet with us, send us an email at events@keyfactor.com and let us know what time works best for you!