February 22, 2026
Kubernetes audit logging records every request to the API server: who made the request, what they asked for, and what happened. Without audit logging, you have no visibility into who accessed secrets, who changed RBAC roles, or who exec’d into a production pod. It is the foundation of security monitoring in Kubernetes.
The audit policy defines which events to record and at what detail level. There are four levels:
February 22, 2026
Audit logging records every request to the Kubernetes API server. Every kubectl command, every controller reconciliation, every kubelet heartbeat, every admission webhook call – all of it can be captured with the requester’s identity, the target resource, the timestamp, and optionally the full request and response bodies. Without audit logging, you have no record of who did what in your cluster. With it, you can trace security incidents, satisfy compliance requirements, and debug access control issues.
February 22, 2026
Security incidents in infrastructure environments follow a predictable lifecycle. The difference between a contained incident and a catastrophic breach is usually preparation and speed of response. This playbook covers the six phases of incident response with specific commands and procedures for Kubernetes and containerized infrastructure.
The phases are sequential but overlap in practice: you may be containing one aspect of an incident while still detecting the full scope.
February 22, 2026
A SIEM collects logs from across your infrastructure, normalizes them, and applies correlation rules to detect threats that no single log source would reveal. A brute force attempt is visible in auth logs. Lateral movement after successful brute force requires correlating auth logs with network flow data and process execution logs. The SIEM makes that correlation possible.
The value of a SIEM depends entirely on the logs you feed it. Missing a log source means missing the attacks that source would reveal.