Secrets & Identity (Implementation Details)*
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Secrets Management
→ Tools: HashiCorp Vault, AWS Secrets Manager, K8s SealedSecrets
→ Ban .env in repos; enable pre-commit secret scanning (gitleaks, truffleHog)
→ Auto-rotate keys every 30–90 days via Terraform/Ansible
→ Verify: No secrets in Git history, rotation logs in SIEM -
Least Privilege IAM
→ Per-job/per-service identities with exact resource scoping
→ CI/CD runners: READ-only to prod by default
→ Time-boxed elevation with full audit trail
→ Verify: Policy analyzer shows no wildcards, elevation logs reviewed weekly -
Zero-Trust Architecture
→ Every service call authenticates + authorizes + logs
→ Deny-by-default network policies (K8s NetworkPolicy, AWS Security Groups)
→ No "trusted internal subnet" assumptions
→ Verify: Network policy audit, failed auth alerts trigger
Encryption & Data Protection
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End-to-End Encryption
→ TLS 1.3 in transit (including internal services), AES-256/KMS at rest
→ Automated cert expiry checks, HSTS on edges
→ Verify: SSL Labs A+ rating, KMS key rotation enabled -
Field-Level Protection
→ Tokenize/pseudonymize PII at ingest (not in warehouse)
→ Envelope encryption (KMS + pgcrypto) for high-risk columns
→ Never load raw PII into dev/staging environments
→ Verify: PII scanner finds zero unmasked records in non-prod -
Database Security Controls
→ Enable TDE (Transparent Data Encryption)
→ Row-Level Security (Postgres RLS, Snowflake) for user/tenant scoping
→ Separate read/write roles, no shared admin accounts
→ Verify: Query logs show RLS enforcement, admin access <1% of queries
Container & Runtime Security
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Runtime Hardening
→ Non-root user, read-only filesystem, drop Linux capabilities
→ Seccomp/AppArmor profiles, no shell in prod images
→ Block metadata abuse (AWS IMDSv2 with hop limit=1)
→ Verify: Image scan shows no root processes, metadata endpoint unreachable -
Service Mesh & Network Isolation
→ Mutual TLS between all services (Istio, Linkerd, or Envoy sidecars)
→ K8s NetworkPolicy so only approved pods reach databases
→ Verify: mTLS metrics in Prometheus, unauthorized connections blocked
Supply Chain & CI/CD
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Supply Chain Security
→ Generate SBOMs for all images/dependencies (Syft)
→ Scan in CI (Trivy, Grype, pip-audit), fail builds on critical CVEs
→ Sign images (cosign), enforce signature verification at deploy
→ Pin base images to SHA256 digests
→ Verify: Zero unsigned images in prod, SBOM in artifact registry -
CI/CD Isolation
→ Runners have READ-only prod access by default
→ Separate deploy pipelines for dev/staging/prod
→ Require code review + approval for prod deploys
→ Verify: Deployment logs show approver identity, no direct commits to prod
Monitoring & Incident Response
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Detection & Alerting
→ Alert on: failed Vault access, unusual S3 reads, anomalous SQL, IAM policy changes
→ Runtime sensors (Falco) for container escape patterns
→ Verify: Weekly alert drills, <5 min mean time to detect (MTTD) -
Log Hygiene
→ Structured logs with auto-redaction (tokens, passwords, PII)
→ Encrypted at rest, short retention (90 days max for sensitive logs)
→ Verify: Log sample contains zero secrets, PII redaction rate >99% -
Data Egress Control
→ Restrict outbound to approved domains/S3 buckets (egress firewall)
→ DLP rules on exports, watermark every extract
→ Data catalog tracks owner + expiry for all extracts
→ Verify: Blocked egress attempts logged, catalog coverage >95%
Backup & Recovery
- Disaster-Proof Backups
→ Cross-account/region storage with different KMS keys
→ Immutability/Object Lock enabled where available
→ Restore drills quarterly with pass/fail criteria
→ Verify: Latest backup <24 hours old, last restore drill passed
Culture & Process
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Incident Readiness
→ Written runbooks for common scenarios
→ Break-glass roles (short TTL, full audit)
→ Key revocation playbook, 24-hour secret rotation SLA
→ Verify: Tabletop exercise quarterly, runbook updated after each incident -
Environment Separation
→ Prod: full encryption + audit, dedicated AWS account/VPC
→ Dev: synthetic or masked data only, separate network
→ Test: speed over security, zero prod credentials
→ Verify: No prod data in dev (DLP scan), network segmentation tested