Securing Kubernetes Ingress: TLS, Rate Limiting, WAF, and Access Control

Calendar February 22, 2026
Security
Intermediate
Ingress-Hardening, Tls-Configuration, Waf-Deployment, Access-Control
Ingress, Tls, Waf, Rate-Limiting, Nginx-Ingress, Authentication
Kubectl, Nginx-Ingress, Cert-Manager, Oauth2-Proxy

Securing Kubernetes Ingress#

The ingress controller is the front door to your cluster. Every request from the internet passes through it, making it both the most exposed component and the best place to enforce security controls. Most teams deploy an ingress controller and stop at basic routing. That leaves the door wide open.

TLS Termination and HTTPS Enforcement#

Every ingress should terminate TLS. Never serve production traffic over plain HTTP. With nginx-ingress, force HTTPS redirects and add HSTS headers: