Container Data Encryption with Key Sharding for Shared-OS Security
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Solution Overview
Problem
Containerization in cloud computing lacks effective data protection measures, as containers share an operating system, making them vulnerable to security risks when the host machine's operating system is compromised.
Innovation Solution
Implement a key management component to encrypt data persistently and shard keys, ensuring that data stored in the host machine's operating system remains secure by isolating decryption keys for different applications and enabling secure key updating without affecting container applications.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If containers share an operating system to achieve resource saving and flexible deployment, then productivity and ease of operation are improved, but security reliability deteriorates because the host machine's operating system becomes a single point of failure
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the decryption key into multiple key shards and distributes them to different containers. This segmentation ensures that even if the host operating system is compromised, an attacker cannot decrypt data from multiple containers simultaneously, as each container only possesses a fragment of the master key. This resolves the contradiction by maintaining the shared OS architecture while introducing cryptographic segmentation to protect data security.
2Reliability
If encryption is implemented at the container level to improve data security, then reliability is improved, but device complexity increases due to additional key management components
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a key management component as an intermediary between the data deployment tool and containers. This intermediary automatically performs key sharding, distributes key shards to containers, and manages key rotation. By offloading key management complexity to this dedicated intermediary component, the system achieves strong encryption without requiring each container to implement complex key management logic, thus resolving the contradiction between security and complexity.
3Reliability
If keys are updated to enhance security, then reliability is improved, but ease of operation deteriorates due to the need to update multiple containers
Solution Approach 1:
The key management component serves as an intermediary that centralizes key update operations. When key rotation is required, the intermediary generates new key shards and distributes them to all containers automatically. This eliminates the need for manual key updates in each container, resolving the contradiction by making key updates as simple as updating a single centralized component while maintaining strong security through regular key rotation.
Data Source
AI summary
Embodiments of this application relate to the cloud computing field, and provide a method and an apparatus for managing container data. The method is applied to a cloud management platform, the cloud management platform is configured to manage a plurality of container management clusters providing a container service, the cloud management platform includes a key management component, and the key management component is configured to split a key. The method includes: encrypting first data based on a first key, to generate first data ciphertext, where the first data is data to be deployed to a target container; splitting the first key based on the key management component, to generate a first key shard; and deploying the first data ciphertext and the first key shard to a host machine to which the target container belongs. This method enhances security of the data in the container.