Anti-phishing and social engineering for an AKS regulated cluster for PCI DSS 4.0.1

PCI DSS 4.0.1 expands requirements for anti-phishing and social engineering protections. This document provides guidance for implementing these controls for AKS admin and developer access.

AKS feature support

AKS provides several features to help you meet PCI DSS 4.0.1 anti-phishing and social engineering requirements:

  • Microsoft Defender for Cloud: Provides threat protection, including anti-phishing and social engineering detection, for AKS clusters and integrated Azure resources.
  • Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD) Conditional Access: Supports risk-based access policies and can help mitigate phishing attempts by enforcing strong authentication and session controls.
  • Azure Policy: Enforce security awareness and anti-phishing training requirements for AKS users.
  • Integration with Microsoft 365 Defender: For organizations using Microsoft 365, anti-phishing and social engineering protections can be extended to email and collaboration tools used by AKS administrators and developers.

Your responsibilities

  • Ensure all AKS administrators and users complete regular security awareness and anti-phishing training.
  • Configure and enforce Conditional Access policies to require MFA and block risky sign-ins.
  • Integrate AKS with Microsoft Defender for Cloud and ensure threat detection is enabled for all clusters.
  • Document and test incident response procedures for suspected phishing or social engineering attempts targeting AKS resources.
  • Regularly review and update anti-phishing controls as new threats emerge.

Key practices

  • Enforce security awareness training for all AKS users.
  • Implement anti-phishing protections in email and collaboration tools.
  • Use just-in-time access and approval workflows for privileged actions.
  • Document incident response for suspected phishing or social engineering attempts.

Integrated AKS security context

You should implement anti-phishing and social engineering efforts as part of a broader security strategy that includes:

For the latest AKS security features, see the Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) documentation.

Next steps

Implement comprehensive third-party and supply chain security controls to protect against vendor-related risks.

Implement third-party and supply chain security

For more information, review the official PCI DSS 4.0.1 documentation.