Cloud Secret Federation for Workload Entitlement Verification
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current secret management infrastructures in cloud compute platforms do not integrate well with all compute platforms, particularly those that do not generate their own workload instance authenticators, leading to inefficiencies and security vulnerabilities.
Innovation Solution
A secret management infrastructure (SMI) federates with cloud compute platforms to store, issue, manage, and revoke secrets to workload instances, verifying their entitlement and attributes before credential issuance, and supports audits to elevate access levels based on security posture.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a dedicated secret management infrastructure is used without deep integration with cloud compute platforms, then it can serve multiple platforms universally, but it cannot verify workload instance entitlements effectively and has security awareness limitations
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediary component that bridges the secret management infrastructure and cloud compute platforms. This intermediary handles the verification of workload instance entitlements by interacting with the compute platform's control plane, allowing the secret management system to maintain security awareness without direct complex integration with each compute platform. The intermediary translates between different platform-specific authenticators and the universal secret management interface.
2Reliability
If the SMI verifies workload instance attributes through integration with the compute platform, then security posture awareness is enhanced, but the system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a universal verification mechanism that can work across multiple cloud compute platforms through a common interface. The SMI is designed to handle different platform-specific authenticators (such as instance identity documents, service account tokens, or other platform-native credentials) through a unified entitlement verification process. This allows the system to verify workload instance attributes accurately without requiring separate integration architectures for each platform.
3Measurement precision
If credentials are issued based on flexible label matching, then access control precision is improved, but the verification process becomes more complex
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary labeling of workload instances during their creation or registration with the compute platform. Labels such as workload type, security requirements, and access permissions are pre-assigned to instances. When credential issuance is requested, the SMI performs label matching against pre-defined policies, which simplifies the verification process compared to real-time analysis of all instance attributes. This preliminary action enables precise access control while reducing the complexity of the credential issuance process.
Data Source
AI summary
A secret management infrastructure federates with a cloud compute platform to store, issue, track and revoke secrets issued to workload instances. A workload instance can be provisioned with a token and can present that token to the secret management infrastructure (SMI) in exchange for a credential. In addition to validating the token itself, the SMI can verify whether the workload instance is entitled to receive the credential based on label match. The label is typically workload operator defined and corresponds to one or more attributes that the workload instance must possess, particularly physical, hardware, or software attributes. Preferably the secret management infrastructure verifies that the workload instance matches the label (that is, it has the necessary attributes) from the control plane of the cloud compute platform, or other source independent of the workload instance.