A Comparative Study of Security Mechanisms to Prevent Denial of Service (Dos) Attacks in Kubernetes

Kubernetes is a powerful and widely used container orchestration platform. However, its popularity also makes it an attractive target for cybersecurity attacks such as Denial-of-Service (DoS), which can significantly disrupt the services and operations of organizations. To help to improve the security practices of Kubernetes-based clusters, we present a comparative study in which we systematically evaluated six popular security defense mechanisms (i.e., Rate Limiting, Resource Quotas, Network Policies, Role-Based Access Control, API Rate Limiting, and Service Meshes) against DoS attacks. Using a controlled test environment with Minikube, we assess each mechanism's effectiveness at blocking attacks, its performance overhead, and its operational complexity. Our results show that no single mechanism is sufficient on its own; instead, a layered combination yields the strongest defense. We conclude with actionable guidance for practitioners on selecting and integrating these mechanisms to enhance Kubernetes resilience against DoS threats.