Security: Encryption and FIPS that are Standardized and Compliant
Learn how to implement encryption and FIPS compliance across your platform with clear standards, automated certificate rotation, and consistent policy enforcement from edge to workload.
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Most teams enable encryption in a few obvious places, such as TLS at the edge and disk encryption in storage. These are useful, but they are not enough for a modern platform that spans many clusters and regions. To protect traffic and satisfy compliance, you need encryption that covers every hop, clear rules for which cryptography is allowed, and proof that the software doing the encryption meets required standards. The standard many regulated teams follow is called FIPS. FIPS stands for Federal Information Processing Standards. When people say “FIPS validated,” they mean the cryptographic module has been tested against the FIPS 140 program and passed that testing.
A strong encryption and FIPS program starts with clear building blocks and one place to manage them. Encryption in transit protects data as it moves between services. Encryption at rest protects data when it sits in storage. Mutual TLS, often shortened to mTLS, is the practice where both sides of a connection authenticate with certificates and then encrypt all traffic. A cryptographic module is the software that implements encryption and authentication. FIPS validation applies to that module, not to your entire application. With those definitions in place, you can build a model that is predictable, repeatable, and easy to audit.
Here is a simple blueprint for getting the basics right:
- Identity: Issue a unique, short-lived cryptographic identity to every workload and every gateway. Rotate it automatically.
- Encryption in transit: Turn on mutual TLS within and across clusters so every connection is authenticated and encrypted.
- Encryption at rest: Use strong keys for databases, queues, and object storage, and keep those keys outside the application in a key management system.
- Approved crypto: Standardize cipher suites, protocol versions, and certificate lifetimes. Use cryptographic modules that meet your FIPS requirements.
- Rotation and revocation: Define how keys and certificates are rotated, how you revoke them quickly, and how you recover safely.
- Observability and audit: Record which identities connected, which ciphers were used, and which policy allowed the connection. Keep this evidence for audits.
The idea is simple, yet keeping these pieces aligned across regions, clusters, and teams is difficult. Environments drift when each team picks its own ciphers. Certificates get managed by hand and expire at the wrong time. Emergency exceptions outlive the incident that created them. You need a way to make good defaults easy and to keep those defaults the same everywhere.
How to implement this with open source
Start with workload identity based on short-lived certificates so services can prove who they are. With identities in place, enable mutual TLS inside the mesh so every connection is both authenticated and encrypted. Standardize certificate lifetimes, cipher suites, and minimum protocol versions so behavior is predictable. Encrypt data at rest using a key management system that lives outside the application. Keep all policy and configuration in version control so changes are reviewed, promoted, and easy to roll back.
Extend the same model to traffic that enters and leaves your platform. Gateways at the edge should terminate or pass through TLS as required and verify identities before forwarding. Use request-level checks at the gateway when you need to validate user tokens or device posture. Keep the decision point close to the gateway so policy is enforced before traffic reaches the service. As you add regions and clusters, keep trust bundles aligned and keep policy templates the same so audits are simpler and behavior is consistent.
Open source can get you there, but at scale you must supply the pieces that tie everything together: automatic certificate issuance and rotation for every workload and gateway, access controls so teams can change routes and policies safely, a promotion path with approvals and fast rollback, shared encryption baselines that stay consistent across regions and clusters, and telemetry that links requests to identities and ciphers for audit. Tetrate Service Bridge includes these pieces so you configure once, keep behavior consistent, and avoid custom plumbing as you grow.
How to implement this with Tetrate Service Bridge
Tetrate Service Bridge, or TSB, is a platform that manages service connectivity and security across clusters and regions. TSB issues and rotates workload identities automatically, enables mutual TLS by default, and applies consistent authorization and encryption policy at gateways and inside the mesh. You model your organization once. Platform owners set the global guardrails, such as approved cipher suites and certificate lifetimes. Application teams manage the routes and the permissions they need inside that boundary. Every change is versioned, promoted with checks, and recorded for audit.
TSB makes encryption and FIPS requirements practical at scale because it treats identity, encryption, and policy as one path from the edge to the workload. Gateways verify who is calling, enforce the approved crypto settings, and route to the right region or cluster. Inside the cluster, policies live close to the service so you can express least-privilege rules without copy and paste. Telemetry from each enforcement point flows into a common view. Operators and auditors can see which identities connected, which ciphers were used, and why a decision was made.
The payoff
A consistent encryption and FIPS model reduces the chance of weak ciphers slipping into production, limits the blast radius of expired or compromised certificates, and shortens the time to diagnose issues. Developers keep moving because the platform handles identity, encryption, and baseline policy for them. Security and compliance teams get clear ownership, repeatable promotion, and auditable records. As the platform grows, you carry the model with you rather than rebuilding controls for every new cluster or region.
Learn more about Tetrate Service Bridge to see how it can help you implement encryption and FIPS in your environment.
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