Why Kernel-Level Security Demands eBPF-Based Runtime Protection

Cloud-native systems are fundamentally dynamic. Between ephemeral containers, service mesh proliferation, and multi-cloud orchestration, security teams are left with fragmented, often obsolete, visibility into what workloads are doing at runtime. Traditional CNAPPs, which rely on user-space agents or static logs, simply cannot keep up with this rate of change.

This white paper breaks down how Upwind leverages eBPF to deliver continuous, kernel-level observability, transforming low-level system activity into actionable, context-rich security telemetry. Designed for production-grade environments, Upwind’s architecture enables:

• Real-time syscall and network visibility directly from the kernel
• Zero-copy telemetry with near-zero performance overhead
• Correlation across K8s metadata, cloud identities, and container states
• In-kernel inspection of API calls, sensitive data flows, and lateral movement
• Precision enforcement tied to workload identity, not static IPs or ports