Date of Award
Spring 2025
Rights
Access is available to all users
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS) in Professional Cybersecurity
Department
Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
Abstract
Microservice architectures are central to modern cloud computing and have become the dominant design pattern for scalable, distributed applications. Kubernetes is often the tool used for rapid deployment and orchestration of microservices. A known issue for large networks clusters is a malicious actor can compromise a vulnerable cluster in minutes. Their ability to quickly compromise vulnerable clusters highlights the urgent need for stronger security. This project views cluster defense through a preemptive security lens, introducing the Cluster Life cycle Management System (CLMS). Inspired by the biological process of apoptosis, CLMS systematically replaces aging containers and services to prevent exploitation of a Kubernetes environment before it begins. CLMS addresses both performance degradation and evolving cybersecurity threats, to set a higher standard for secure, highly available Kubernetes environments. My thesis research states that restarting containers in a microservice environment can reduce the opportunity for lateral movement by attackers, increasing the overall security of the system.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Moomaw, Alexander Hunter, "Death by design: a biological approach to container security" (2025). EWU Masters Thesis Collection. 987.
https://dc.ewu.edu/theses/987
