Zero Trust Security Model Implementation in Microservices Architectures Using Identity Federation

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how implementing Zero Trust Security with identity federation enhances security, interoperability, and compliance in microservices architectures using industry-standard protocols and technologies.

Contribution

It proposes a comprehensive framework integrating Zero Trust principles with identity federation and standard protocols for microservices security.

Findings

Reduced attack surface through Zero Trust implementation

Enhanced interoperability across multi-domain environments

Improved compliance with DevSecOps standards

Abstract

The microservice bombshells that have been linked with the microservice expansion have altered the application architectures, offered agility and scalability in terms of complexity in security trade-offs. Feeble legacy-based perimeter-based policies are unable to offer safeguard to distributed workloads and temporary interaction among and in between the services. The article itself is a case on the need of the Zero Trust Security Model of micro services ecosystem, particularly, the fact that human and workloads require identity federation. It is proposed that the solution framework will be based on industry-standard authentication and authorization and end-to-end trust identity technologies, including Authorization and OpenID connect (OIDC), Authorization and OAuth 2.0 token exchange, and Authorization and SPIFFE/ SPIRE workload identities. Experimental evaluation is a unique demonstration of a superior security position of making use of a smaller attack surface, harmony policy enforcement, as well as interoperability across multi- domain environments. The research results overlay that the federated identity combined with the Zero Trust basics not only guarantee the rules relating to authentication and authorization but also fully complies with the latest DevSecOps standards of microservice deployment, which is automated, scaled, and resilient. The current project offers a stringent roadmap to the organizations that desire to apply Zero Trust in cloud-native technologies but will as well guarantee adherence and interoperability.