Upgrade to Pro
— share decks privately, control downloads, hide ads and more …
Speaker Deck
Sign up for free
Menu
Search
Features
All features
Private URLs
Password Protection
Custom URLS
Scheduled publishing
Remove Branding
Restrict embedding
Deck Collections
Notes
Features
All features
Private URLs
Password Protection
Custom URLS
Scheduled publishing
Remove Branding
Restrict embedding
Deck Collections
Notes
Explore
Featured decks
Featured speakers
Programming
Technology
Storyboards
Explore
Featured decks
Featured speakers
Programming
Technology
Storyboards
Pricing
Search
Sign in
Sign up for free
eBPF for Security Observability
Search
Sponsored
·
Ship Features Fearlessly
Turn features on and off without deploys. Used by thousands of Ruby developers.
→
Liz Rice
June 24, 2022
Technology
1.8k
0
Share
Embed
Copy iframe code
Copy JS code
Copy link
Start on current slide
eBPF for Security Observability
As seen at DevOpsDays Amsterdam and KCD Berlin
Liz Rice
June 24, 2022
More Decks by Liz Rice
See All by Liz Rice
Detecting Compromised CI with eBPF and Cilium Tetragon
lizrice
0
410
Building a cloud native business on open source
lizrice
0
290
KCD Lima: eBee in Peru!
lizrice
0
230
Unleashing the kernel with eBPF
lizrice
0
460
eBPF's Abilities and Limitations: The Truth
lizrice
0
570
Simplifying multi-cloud and multi-cluster Kubernetes deployments with Cilium
lizrice
0
330
When is a Secure Connection not encrypted? And other stories
lizrice
1
170
Keeping it simple: Cilium Mesh - networking for multi-cloud Kubernetes and beyond
lizrice
1
830
How Many Proxies Do You Need
lizrice
1
230
Other Decks in Technology
See All in Technology
QA4AI 2026-Oct 生成AI時代の品質保証
tokuty
1
930
Railsで挑む大量データ永続化 〜600億件を永続化するための設計とボトルネックとの戦い〜
occhi
1
1k
【データ横丁主催】AI エージェント時代のTranslytical Data Platform
shisyu_gaku
0
140
古い指輪から広がった JAVA コミュニティ とのつながり
yamad
0
130
事業成長とデータ活用を止めないためのマネジメントへ挑戦
hiracky16
0
420
Getting Started with Google Antigravity
glaforge
0
340
『SAR衛星データ解析入門』のご紹介とその応用
syuchimu
0
130
Refining Active Record
shugo
0
180
ソフトウェア ファクトリー - 再現性のあるソフトウェアの工場づくり / Software factory
iktakahiro
7
5.2k
LambdaWebFunctionsを試してみた / exploring-lambda-web-functions
koukihosaka
1
370
JAWSUG TOHOKU 青森支部 「LoGoチャット」のAWS移行で 乗り越えたこと
taketakekaho
0
360
[JAWS-UG彩の国埼玉#12]そろそろ準備する?re:Invent2026をやさしく解説 / reinvent2026-sainokuni
sh_fk2
1
370
Featured
See All Featured
Why You Should Never Use an ORM
jnunemaker
PRO
61
10k
Helping Users Find Their Own Way: Creating Modern Search Experiences
danielanewman
31
3.4k
Mind Mapping
helmedeiros
1
400
[Rails World 2026] Durable orchestration on Rails: from continuation to workflow
palkan
1
840
CoffeeScript is Beautiful & I Never Want to Write Plain JavaScript Again
sstephenson
162
16k
How GitHub (no longer) Works
holman
316
150k
Leadership Guide Workshop - DevTernity 2021
reverentgeek
1
400
Become a Pro
speakerdeck
PRO
31
6.3k
The Success of Rails: Ensuring Growth for the Next 100 Years
eileencodes
47
8.4k
Data-driven link building: lessons from a $708K investment (BrightonSEO talk)
szymonslowik
1
1.4k
[SF Ruby Conf 2025] Rails X
palkan
3
1.5k
Principles of Awesome APIs and How to Build Them.
keavy
128
18k
Transcript
eBPF for Security Observability Liz Rice | @lizrice Chief Open
Source Officer, Isovalent
@lizrice
@lizrice What is ? extended Berkeley Packet Filter
@lizrice What is ? Makes the kernel programmable
@lizrice userspace kernel app event system calls eBPF program Run
custom code in the kernel
@lizrice SEC("kprobe/sys_execve") int hello(void *ctx) { bpf_trace_printk("Hello World!"); return 0;
} $ sudo ./hello bash-20241 [004] d... 84210.752785: 0: Hello World! bash-20242 [004] d... 84216.321993: 0: Hello World! bash-20243 [004] d... 84225.858880: 0: Hello World! Info about process that called execve syscall + userspace code to load eBPF program eBPF Hello World
Dynamic changes to kernel behaviour
Dynamic tracing tools
@lizrice userspace kernel Tracing tool event eBPF program Use eBPF
to collect event metrics eBPF Map metrics load Gather & show metrics
@lizrice eBPF tracing tools from iovisor/bcc
@lizrice eBPF tracing - opensnoop ~/bcc/libbpf-tools$ sudo ./opensnoop PID COMM
FD ERR PATH 5040 node 21 0 /proc/5132/cmdline 5040 node 21 0 /proc/6460/cmdline 5040 node 21 0 /proc/6460/cmdline 6461 opensnoop 18 0 /etc/localtime 5040 node 21 0 /proc/5132/cmdline 5040 node 21 0 /proc/6460/cmdline 5060 node 23 0 /home/liz/.vscode-server/data/User/workspaceStorage/48b53 5040 node 21 0 /proc/5132/cmdline 5040 node 21 0 /proc/6460/cmdline 5040 node 21 0 /proc/5132/cmdline 5040 node 21 0 /proc/6460/cmdline …
eBPF and Kubernetes
@lizrice userspace kernel pod container pod container container One kernel
per host
@lizrice userspace kernel networking access files create containers One kernel
per host pod container pod container container
@lizrice userspace kernel app app pods networking access files create
containers Kernel aware of everything on the host
@lizrice userspace app kernel app pods networking access files create
containers eBPF programs can be aware of everything
@lizrice $ kubectl gadget trace open NODE NAMESPACE POD CONTAINER
PID COMM FD ERR PATH kind-2-control-plane default xwing spaceship 361876 vi 3 0 /etc/passwd eBPF tracing on Kubernetes - Inspektor Gadget Kubernetes info
@lizrice eBPF observability tools -
@lizrice eBPF observability tools - Cilium Hubble
eBPF observability
eBPF security observability
@lizrice Security observability
@lizrice Security observability
@lizrice What activity do we care about for security? eBPF
programs
@lizrice Syscall checks within the kernel
@lizrice TOCTTOU vulnerabilities with syscalls For more details • Leo
Di Donato & KP Singh at CN eBPF Day 2021 • Rex Guo & Junyuan Zeng at DEFCON 29 on Phantom attacks Attacker changes params after inspection
@lizrice Need to make the check at the right place
@lizrice Linux Security Modules • Stable interface • Safe places
to make checks
@lizrice BPF LSM • Stable interface • Safe places to
make checks + eBPF benefits • Dynamic • Protect pre-existing processes
@lizrice $ sudo ./chmoddemo & [1] 7631 $ sudo cat
/sys/kernel/debug/tracing/trace_pipe chmod-7776 [001] d... 38197.342160: bpf_trace_printk: lsm path_chmod liz BPF LSM hook has kernel info populated SEC("lsm/path_chmod") int BPF_PROG(path_chmod, const struct path *path, umode_t mode) { bpf_printk("lsm path_chmod %s\n", path->dentry->d_iname); return 0; } Filename known to kernel
@lizrice BPF LSM • Stable interface • Safe places to
make checks + eBPF benefits • Dynamic • Protect pre-existing processes But needs kernel 5.7+ & Kubernetes context?
How stable is the Linux kernel?
@lizrice Cilium Tetragon • Safe places to make checks +
eBPF benefits • Dynamic • Protect pre-existing processes Uses kernel knowledge to hook into sufficiently stable functions Adds Kubernetes context
@lizrice Photo credit: Bibafu A Tetragonisca angustula bee guarding the
nest-entrance
@lizrice apiVersion: cilium.io/v1alpha1 kind: TracingPolicy metadata: name: "etc-files" spec: kprobes:
- call: "fd_install" … matchArgs: - index: 1 operator: "Prefix" values: - "/etc/" … Cilium Tetragon tracing policy + Policy “follows” file descriptor through read, write & close events
@lizrice $ kubectl logs ds/tetragon -c export-stdout -f | tetragon
observe 🚀 process default/xwing /usr/bin/vi /etc/passwd 📬 open default/xwing /usr/bin/vi /etc/passwd 📪 close default/xwing /usr/bin/vi 📬 open default/xwing /usr/bin/vi /etc/passwd 📝 write default/xwing /usr/bin/vi /etc/passwd 1275 bytes 📪 close default/xwing /usr/bin/vi 💥 exit default/xwing /usr/bin/vi /etc/passwd 0 Cilium Tetragon observe Policy events Kubernetes info
@lizrice Combined network and runtime visibility
eBPF preventative runtime security
@lizrice Network policy → eBPF programs drop packets
@lizrice Preventative actions from user space
@lizrice Preventative actions from kernel
@lizrice $ kubectl logs ds/tetragon -c export-stdout -f | tetragon
observe 🚀 process default/xwing /usr/bin/vi /etc/passwd 📬 open default/xwing /usr/bin/vi /etc/passwd 📪 close default/xwing /usr/bin/vi 📬 open default/xwing /usr/bin/vi /etc/passwd 📝 write default/xwing /usr/bin/vi /etc/passwd 1269 bytes 💥 exit default/xwing /usr/bin/vi /etc/passwd SIGKILL Cilium Tetragon observe Killed before write
eBPF security observability • Dynamic instrumentation - zero app modifications
• Contextual information, Kubernetes identity-aware • Option for runtime enforcement from the kernel
Thank you! cilium/tetragon @ciliumproject cilium.io | ebpf.io @lizrice