Securing Multi-tenant Kubernetes Cluster Using eBPF

Sharma, Abhishek Murari (2025) Securing Multi-tenant Kubernetes Cluster Using eBPF. Masters thesis, Dublin, National College of Ireland.

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Abstract

In the cloud-native environment, multi-tenancy is on the rise to better optimize resource usage and lower the operation expenses, making kubernetes the de facto standard of container orchestration. Nonetheless, the conventional security tools, including iptables-based NetworkPolicy, fixed firewall settings, and user space intrusion detection tools, have a hard time supporting the dynamic security needs of contemporary multi-tenant deployments. These approaches have limited granular visibility, high performance overheads at scale, and have low levels of contextual awareness of application identity or behaviour. This Project explores the usage of eBPF-based security applications using Cilium for better tenant isolation and threat detection in a muliti-tenant kubernetes clusters. Through comprehensive experimental evaluation using a reproducible testbed with kind, Cilium and Kubernetes RBAC, this study compares the performance indicators and monitoring capabilities, and the enforcement functions of unauthorized communication between tenants using the eBPF based security mechanisms with the traditional approaches. The findings endorse that eBPF method facilitates inbuilt, real-time visibility and security policies with 100% insignificant resource oversight, accomplishing 24,086 Mbps throughput relative to 23,245 Mbps of conventional NetworkPolicy, and offers Layer 7 oversight capabilities. This work provides a viable direction toward building dynamic, efficient, and identity-sensitive security models of multi-tenant Kubernetes systems.

Item Type:	Thesis (Masters)
Supervisors:	Name Email Arun, Shreyas Setlur UNSPECIFIED
Uncontrolled Keywords:	eBPF; Kubernetes security; multi-tenant isolation; Cilium; container security; cloud-native security
Subjects:	T Technology > T Technology (General) > Information Technology > Cloud computing Q Science > QA Mathematics > Computer software > Computer Security T Technology > T Technology (General) > Information Technology > Computer software > Computer Security
Divisions:	School of Computing > Master of Science in Cloud Computing
Depositing User:	Ciara O'Brien
Date Deposited:	01 Sep 2026 10:50
Last Modified:	01 Sep 2026 10:50
URI:	https://norma.ncirl.ie/id/eprint/9735

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