Patch Me If You Can: Tackling Outdated Addons Before They Become a Risk - Stevie Caldwell & Andy Suderman, Fairwinds

Abstract

Kubernetes addons often sit quietly behind the scenes—until they become your biggest security liability. Whether it’s an old version of a DNS provider, metrics server, or ingress controller, these components are essential to your cluster’s operation but rarely treated as part of a regular update cycle. In this session, we’ll dive into the risks of neglecting addon maintenance and share practical strategies for getting ahead of potential failures or vulnerabilities. You’ll learn how to assess addon health, prioritize updates, and communicate the business case for proactive maintenance—even when everything seems to be working “just fine.” Walk away with tools to build a repeatable, low-friction update plan that boosts both the security and reliability of your clusters.