Karine DilanyanDiscover OpenStack security best practices with groups, benchmarks, and guidelines — plus how Atmosphere simplifies secure deployments.
Cloud security has become a top priority in today's digital landscape—but the responsibility doesn't stop at shared infrastructure. Gartner predicts that by 2025, 99% of cloud security failures will be the customer’s fault, often due to misconfigurations. This stark reality amplifies the need for rigorous identity management, policy enforcement, and continuous auditing in OpenStack environments.
OpenStack, one of the leading open-source cloud platforms, offers unmatched flexibility and scalability for building private and hybrid clouds. But with that flexibility comes unique security challenges — from managing complex access controls to keeping up with rapid release cycles and evolving compliance needs.
The good news: the OpenStack community has established proven best practices, benchmarks, and guidelines to help enterprises secure their environments. In this blog post, we’ll explore actionable steps to safeguard your OpenStack deployment — and show how Atmosphere OpenStack makes applying these practices more seamless.
Identity Management: Securing Access to Your Cloud
Strong identity and access management is the foundation of cloud security. Without it, even the most advanced network and data protection can fall short.
Best practices include
Enforce Strong Authentication: Use robust password policies and implement multi-factor authentication (MFA) to reduce credential-based risks.
Leverage Federated Identity: Integrate OpenStack Keystone with enterprise identity solutions like LDAP, SAML, or OpenID Connect. This centralizes user management and reduces the complexity of maintaining multiple identity silos.
Use Application Credentials: Instead of embedding user credentials in applications or scripts, use OpenStack’s application credentials feature to minimize exposure.
Atmosphere advantage
Atmosphere provides seamless identity integration with enterprise authentication systems, ensuring efficient, secure access control across complex environments.
Configuring Security Groups for Stronger Network Protection
Security groups in OpenStack act as virtual firewalls, controlling inbound and outbound traffic to instances. Configuring them properly is critical for minimizing attack surfaces.
Best practices include
Apply the Principle of Least Privilege: Default to deny-all rules and explicitly allow only the traffic required for each workload.
Regular Reviews: Regularly audit and update rules to reflect evolving application and business requirements.
Use Naming Conventions: Adopt clear naming and tagging conventions to simplify managing security groups at scale.
Atmosphere advantage
Atmosphere leverages OVN for distributed, scalable networking. This ensures secure traffic routing and efficient segmentation, even in large multi-tenant environments.
Data Protection: Encryption at Rest and In Transit
Protecting sensitive data, whether stored on disk or traveling across networks, is a cornerstone of any security strategy.
Best practices include
Encryption at Rest: Enable encryption for block storage volumes (Cinder) and object storage (Swift) to protect data at rest from unauthorized access.
Encryption in Transit: Use secure protocols like TLS and HTTPS to ensure that data in motion is protected.
Key Management: Regularly rotate encryption keys and store them securely with OpenStack’s key management system.
Atmosphere advantage
Atmosphere provides built-in support for encryption at rest and in transit, delivering peace of mind that sensitive information remains protected end-to-end.
Adhering to Security Benchmarks and Guidelines
Industry standards provide a framework for assessing and improving your security posture.
Key benchmarks and guidelines include
- CIS Benchmarks for OpenStack: Published by the Center for Internet Security, these offer a comprehensive set of secure configuration recommendations.
- STIGs (Security Technical Implementation Guides): Widely used in government and defense, STIGs define detailed rules for secure deployments.
- Regulatory Compliance: Frameworks such as GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI-DSS require organizations to demonstrate that their environments meet specific security requirements.
Best practices include
- Regularly auditing your OpenStack environment against CIS or STIG benchmarks.
- Using automated tools (e.g., OpenSCAP, Terraform compliance checks) to detect and remediate vulnerabilities.
- Staying informed about and applying OpenStack security patches. The OpenStack community actively maintains resources like the OpenStack Security SIG, which publishes advisories, guidelines, and tools to help operators strengthen their deployments.
Atmosphere advantage
Atmosphere’s upstream-first approach ensures that security patches and updates are integrated quickly, simplifying alignment with CIS and other benchmarks.
Automating Security with Orchestration and Monitoring
In today’s fast-moving threat landscape, manual security practices are not enough. Automation reduces human error, enforces consistency, and accelerates incident response.
Best practices include
Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Define and enforce security policies using tools like Ansible, Terraform, or Heat. This ensures consistent, repeatable configurations.
Continuous Monitoring: Implement centralized logging and anomaly detection with tools like ELK or Monasca to monitor for suspicious activity in real time.
Alerting and Response: Automate alerts to trigger security workflows when unusual patterns are detected.
Atmosphere advantage
Atmosphere supports orchestration services and IaC practices, enabling enterprises to define secure cloud environments programmatically and ensure compliance at scale.
Regular Audits, Updates, and Incident Response Plans
Security is not a one-time configuration — it requires continuous improvement and vigilance.
Best practices include
Regular Security Audits: Schedule periodic reviews of configurations, access controls, and system logs.
Patch and Upgrade Management: Automate patch application and stay on supported OpenStack versions to minimize exposure to vulnerabilities.
Incident Response Planning: Create and regularly test incident response plans to ensure quick, effective mitigation of potential breaches.
Atmosphere advantage
Atmosphere customers benefit from 24/7 professional services, proactive audits, and managed upgrades, ensuring environments remain secure and up to date.
Conclusion: Building a Secure OpenStack Cloud
Securing an OpenStack environment requires a multi-layered approach: identity management, encryption, compliance with benchmarks, automation, and continuous auditing. By combining these best practices with industry standards like CIS Benchmarks and STIGs, enterprises can strengthen their defenses against evolving threats.
Atmosphere integrates these practices into its architecture, making it easier for organizations to deploy and maintain a security-first OpenStack cloud. Whether your goal is to simplify compliance, protect sensitive data, or achieve enterprise-grade resilience, a managed and secure platform can help you get there faster.
For organizations looking to combine open-source flexibility with enterprise-grade security, Atmosphere offers a comprehensive solution. From identity integration and encryption to compliance and 24/7 support, it provides everything you need to confidently build a secure and scalable OpenStack deployment. Interested to chat further? Talk to our team now!