Deploying Falco on Kubernetes

Runtime security is the last line of defense when attackers bypass perimeter controls. Falco provides real-time threat detection for Kubernetes workloads.

Why Falco?

Falco uses eBPF and kernel modules to detect suspicious behavior:

• Shell execution in containers
• Unexpected network connections
• Privilege escalation attempts
• Sensitive file access

Installation with Helm

helm repo add falcosecurity https://falcosecurity.github.io/charts helm install falco falcosecurity/falco \ --namespace falco \ --create-namespace \ --set driver.kind=ebpf \ --set falcosidekick.enabled=true

Custom Rules

Create rules for your environment:

- rule: Unauthorized Process in Production desc: Detect unexpected processes in production namespace condition: > spawned_process and k8s.ns.name = "production" and not proc.name in (allowed_production_processes) output: > Unexpected process in production (user=%user.name command=%proc.cmdline container=%container.name) priority: WARNING tags: [production, process]

Alert Routing with Falcosidekick

Configure Slack notifications:

config: slack: webhookurl: "https://hooks.slack.com/services/..." minimumpriority: "warning" outputformat: "all"

Tuning for Production

1. Start in audit mode (log only, no blocking)
2. Baseline normal behavior for 1-2 weeks
3. Tune rules to reduce false positives
4. Gradually increase alert priority thresholds
5. Integrate with SIEM for correlation

Conclusion

Falco provides essential runtime visibility with minimal performance overhead. The investment in rule tuning pays off quickly when you catch your first real threat.