Securing Network Traffic with Anthos (Istio) Service Mesh
Overview Anthos Service Mesh's security features are designed to prevent unauthorized access and data breaches by ensuring that all communication between workloads is securely authenticated and encrypted, thereby mitigating the risks posed by insiders. A specific method called PERMISSIVE mode mTLS (a type of mutual authentication in which two parties in a connection authenticate each other using the TLS protocol) is used to enable mutual authentication between services, which means that plaintext (unencrypted information pending input into encryption algorithms) and mTLS traffic can both be accepted from clients. This allows for a gradual adoption of mTLS. To enhance security further, STRICT mode mTLS is enabled across our service mesh, which ensures that only mTLS traffic is allowed to access Istio-injected services. Here's an example configuration we explore that demonstrates the authentication options available through Istio. Objectives Enforcing a higher level of securi...