Authentication Mechanisms in Kubernetes: A Systematic Review and the Case for Threshold-Based Token Signing

Kubernetes has become the de facto orchestration platform for containerized workloads, managing authentication and authorization for millions of API requests across production clusters worldwide. This paper presents a survey and research-position paper that systematically reviews authentication mechanisms in Kubernetes, covering X.509 client certificates, bearer tokens, service account tokens, OpenID Connect (OIDC), webhook token authentication, and the recently stabilized External JWT Signer interface (v1.36)...

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Publication Details

Journal
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Published
2026-06-17
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20734453
Primary Topic
Web Application Security Vulnerabilities
Type
preprint
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preprint

Authentication Mechanisms in Kubernetes: A Systematic Review and the Case for Threshold-Based Token Signing

Anju Kakkad, Rahul Kurmi, Shivangi Patel
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Web Application Security Vulnerabilities
preprint

Authentication Mechanisms in Kubernetes: A Systematic Review and the Case for Threshold-Based Token Signing

Anju Kakkad, Rahul Kurmi, Shivangi Patel
preprint en

Abstract

Kubernetes has become the de facto orchestration platform for containerized workloads, managing authentication and authorization for millions of API requests across production clusters worldwide. This paper presents a survey and research-position paper that systematically reviews authentication mechanisms in Kubernetes, covering X.509 client certificates, bearer tokens, service account tokens, OpenID Connect (OIDC), webhook token authentication, and the recently stabilized External JWT Signer interface (v1.36)...

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
RK University (IN)
Web Application Security Vulnerabilities
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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