cis-oke-v180-5-3-1

name	cis-oke-v180-5.3.1
description	Encrypting Kubernetes Secrets at Rest in Etcd (Manual)
category	cis-oke
version	1.8.0
author	cyberstrike-official
tags	["cis","oke","kubernetes","oci","managed-services","kms","encryption","etcd","secrets","vault"]
cis_id	5.3.1
cis_benchmark	CIS Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Container Engine for Kubernetes (OKE) Benchmark v1.8.0
tech_stack	["kubernetes","oci","oke"]
cwe_ids	[]
chains_with	[]
prerequisites	[]
severity_boost	{}

5.3.1 Encrypting Kubernetes Secrets at Rest in Etcd (Manual)

Profile Applicability

• Level 1

Description

Encrypt Kubernetes secrets, stored in etcd, at the application-layer using a customer-managed key.

Rationale

The master nodes in a Kubernetes cluster store sensitive configuration data (such as authentication tokens, passwords, and SSH keys) as Kubernetes secret objects in etcd. Etcd is an open source distributed key-value store that Kubernetes uses for cluster coordination and state management. In the Kubernetes clusters created by Container Engine for Kubernetes, etcd writes and reads data to and from block storage volumes in the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Block Volume service. Although the data in block storage volumes is encrypted, Kubernetes secrets at rest in etcd itself are not encrypted by default.

Audit

Before you can create a cluster where Kubernetes secrets are encrypted in the etcd key-value store, you have to:

• know the name and OCID of a suitable master encryption key in Vault
• create a dynamic group that includes all clusters in the compartment in which you are going to create the new cluster
• create a policy authorizing the dynamic group to use the master encryption key

Remediation

You can create a cluster in one tenancy that uses a master encryption key in a different tenancy. In this case, you have to write cross-tenancy policies to enable the cluster in its tenancy to access the master encryption key in the Vault service's tenancy. Note that if you want to create a cluster and specify a master encryption key that's in a different tenancy, you cannot use the Console to create the cluster.

For example, assume the cluster is in the ClusterTenancy, and the master encryption key is in the KeyTenancy. Users belonging to a group (OKEAdminGroup) in the ClusterTenancy have permissions to create clusters. A dynamic group (OKEAdminDynGroup) has been created in the cluster, with the rule ALL {resource.type = 'cluster', resource.compartment.id = 'ocid1.compartment.oc1..<unique_ID>'}, so all clusters created in the ClusterTenancy belong to the dynamic group.

In the root compartment of the KeyTenancy, the following policies:

Define tenancy OKE_Tenancy as ocid1.tenancy.oc1..<unique_ID>
Define dynamic-group RemoteOKEClusterDynGroup as ocid1.dynamicgroup.oc1..<unique_ID>
Define group RemoteOKEAdminGroup as ocid1.group.oc1..<unique_ID>
Admit dynamic-group RemoteOKEClusterDynGroup of tenancy ClusterTenancy to use keys in tenancy where target.key.id = 'ocid1.key.oc1..<unique_ID>'
Admit group RemoteOKEAdminGroup of tenancy ClusterTenancy to use keys in tenancy where target.key.id = 'ocid1.key.oc1..<unique_ID>'

In the root compartment of the ClusterTenancy, the following policies: