Network Security

When to Use This Skill

This section covers network security configurations for GKE clusters:

• VPC-Native Networking: Container-native IP allocation with Alias IP ranges
• Network Policies: Zero-trust network model with default-deny ingress
• Private Service Connect: Private connectivity to GCP services
• Cloud Armor: Layer 7 DDoS protection and Web Application Firewall

Prerequisites

• GCP project with billing enabled
• Terraform 1.0+
• kubectl configured for cluster access

Implementation

• Cluster Configuration - Private GKE, Workload Identity
• IAM Configuration - Least-privilege IAM
• Runtime Security - Pod Security Standards

Key Principles

Zero Trust Network

Implement default-deny network policies and explicitly allow traffic between services:

• All ingress traffic is blocked by default
• Only required pod-to-pod communication is permitted
• DNS and essential services are explicitly allowed
• Egress traffic is controlled per workload

Private Connectivity

Route traffic through private endpoints for secure, isolated connectivity:

• No public IP addresses required
• Traffic stays on Google's backbone
• Simplified security policy management
• Cross-project access supported

Layer 7 Protection

Cloud Armor provides application-level security:

• DDoS mitigation at the edge
• Geo-blocking and IP filtering
• Rate limiting and bot detection
• XSS and SQLi protection

Related Patterns

• Cluster Configuration
• IAM Configuration
• Runtime Security

References

• Source Documentation
• AEL Secure