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Vault Integration for Secure Data Storage

Cloud4You
3 min read
#it #bezpečnost
Vault Integration for Secure Data Storage

Introduction

The customer requirement was to implement a central solution for secure management of sensitive data and access permissions. The main goal was to ensure secure storage and controlled access to data such as API keys, passwords, and certificates. It was necessary to integrate the solution with existing identity management using OIDC Keycloak and automate authentication of applications running in Kubernetes.

Requirements

The key requirements included:

  • Centralized sensitive data management with auditing capabilities.
  • Integration with existing identity management for single sign-on.
  • Possibility of role-based access control assigned to users.
  • Automated authentication of applications in Kubernetes using Service Account JWT.
  • Scalability and high availability of the solution.
  • Multi-tenant approach enabling isolation of secrets for individual project teams.

Architecture Design

A solution was designed and implemented consisting of the following components:

  • HashiCorp Vault as the central system for secret management.
  • Keycloak as the Identity Provider for OIDC authentication.
  • Kubernetes JWT authentication for automated application access.

Vault was deployed to the existing Kubernetes cluster with high availability and persistent storage. A role-based access control (RBAC) policy was designed using groups in Keycloak to control user access to Vault. The OIDC authentication implementation was set up to approximate a multi-tenant approach, where individual project teams had separate spaces for managing sensitive data, and access was controlled based on their membership in Keycloak groups.

Implementation and Challenges

Several challenges arose during implementation:

  • Integration with Keycloak required synchronization of OIDC settings and mapping of user attributes.
  • Authentication of Kubernetes applications via Service Account JWT required detailed analysis of security risks and correct role configuration.
  • Ensuring high availability of Vault required proper configuration of storage backend and load balancing.
  • Setting up RBAC policies to allow isolation of sensitive data for individual project teams, while access permissions were dynamically controlled based on OIDC groups in Keycloak.

After thorough testing, the integration was successfully deployed to the production environment. Users could authenticate using their Keycloak accounts, and access to sensitive data was controlled according to their roles. Applications running in Kubernetes had the possibility to dynamically obtain access permissions using Vault Kubernetes authentication.

Results and Benefits

After deploying Vault, the following benefits were recorded:

  • Increased security through centralized sensitive data management and access auditing.
  • Simplified user authentication through single sign-on via Keycloak.
  • Automated application access to sensitive data without the need for manual static credential management.
  • Easy scalability of the solution within Kubernetes infrastructure.
  • Possibility of separate sensitive data management between individual project teams through implementation of multi-tenant access.

This implementation significantly increased security standards and enabled better access control to sensitive information in the infrastructure. Vault became a key element of the security architecture and provided a robust foundation for further development of security policy.