Cloud-native security, explained without the buzzwords

Secure the build inputs

Review code changes, dependencies, base images, workflow permissions and secrets. Produce traceable artefacts and restrict who can publish or deploy them.

Reduce workload privilege

Use minimal images, non-root execution, constrained service identities, read-only filesystems where practical and explicit network paths.

Observe the runtime

Collect control-plane audit events, workload behaviour, identity use and network activity. Connect alerts to the owning service and deployment version.

Plan for replacement

Prefer rebuilding and redeploying trusted artefacts over repairing unknown workload state. Test rollback, secret rotation and isolation procedures.