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Network Security

Network isolation is critical in multi-tenant clusters. VPC-native networking provides better performance and simpler network policies. Private Service Connect secures GCP service access. Cloud Armor defends against DDoS and application attacks.

Network Security Layers

  1. VPC-Native Networking - Container-native IP allocation
  2. Network Policies - Pod-to-pod traffic control
  3. Private Service Connect - Secure GCP service access
  4. Cloud Armor - DDoS protection and WAF

Overview

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

Security 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

Prerequisites

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

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