AKS Identity and Security: Entra ID, Workload Identity, and Policy

Calendar February 22, 2026
Kubernetes
Intermediate
Aks-Identity-Management, Workload-Identity-Configuration, Secret-Management, Policy-Enforcement
Aks, Azure, Security, Entra-Id, Workload-Identity, Key-Vault, Azure-Policy, Rbac
Az, Kubectl, Kubelogin

AKS Identity and Security#

AKS identity operates at three levels: who can access the cluster API (authentication), what they can do inside it (authorization), and how pods authenticate to Azure services (workload identity). Each level has Azure-specific mechanisms that replace or extend vanilla Kubernetes patterns.

Entra ID Integration (Azure AD)#

AKS supports two Entra ID integration modes.

AKS-managed Azure AD: Enable with --enable-aad at cluster creation. AKS handles the app registrations and token validation. This is the recommended approach.

Service Account Security: Tokens, RBAC Binding, and Workload Identity

Calendar February 22, 2026
Kubernetes
Intermediate, Advanced
Service-Account-Hardening, Workload-Identity-Configuration, Token-Management, Rbac-Binding
Service-Accounts, Security, Rbac, Workload-Identity, Tokens, Iam
Kubectl, Gcloud, Aws, Az

Service Account Security#

Every pod in Kubernetes runs as a service account. By default, that is the default service account in the pod’s namespace, with an auto-mounted API token that never expires. This default configuration is overly permissive for most workloads. Hardening service accounts is one of the highest-impact security improvements you can make in a Kubernetes cluster.

The Default Problem#

When a pod starts without specifying a service account, Kubernetes does three things: