Apache Knox - Hadoop Security Swiss Army Knife
While traditional on-prem systems have always been a target from internal and external attackers, recent times have seen increased attacks on Hadoop cloud deployments. Hadoop systems are going to be increasingly targeted due to the large volume of data that it stores. Many Hadoop installations on cloud are publicly accessible without any security measures which pose threat to exfiltration of large datasets and possibly crypto-mining on this infrastructure with its huge distributed compute capability.
Apache Knox provides multiple layers of security related to authentication, service-level authorization and web application security controls out of the box for multiple Hadoop components.
Apache Knox provides configuration to prevent common OWASP Top 10 security risks e.g. Cross-site Request Forgery (CSRF), Cross Site Scripting (XSS), MIME Content Type sniffing, Clickjacking, etc. We will also discuss controls like HTTP Strict Transport Security which prevents SSL Downgrade attacks and CORS filter for allowing applications to make cross domain requests only to specifically allowed hosts through XHR. Support to include/exclude Cipher suites and exclude SSL protocols enables compliance with hardening guidelines provided by CIS for application servers.
Knox has several supported authentication mechanisms with Kerberos underneath e.g. LDAP over SSL, AD, PAM based auth for Unix users, integration with Identity Providers like Okta, etc. Also, capabilities like Trusted Proxy, Single Sign-On auth, Hostmap Provider, Identity Assertion Provider, Client Authentication enhances the overall security posture.
We will also cover the typical kill-chain methodology tailored to Hadoop ecosystem which will help formulate the preventive measures against future compromises.