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