Definition. IT-Grundschutz (roughly: baseline IT protection) is the security methodology of the BSI, Germany's Federal Office for Information Security. Its core is the IT-Grundschutz Compendium, a set of modules for typical components such as web servers, databases, containers or Kubernetes. Each module lists basic, standard and elevated requirements. The BSI standards 200-1 to 200-4 describe the process and risk analysis. Certification is possible as ISO 27001 on the basis of IT-Grundschutz.

Why it matters. Many German public-sector clients and critical infrastructure suppliers require it. For platform operators it is a useful checklist even without a certificate. Many requirements translate directly into a pipeline gate or a cluster policy.

Example. Module SYS.1.6 Containerisation requires, among other things, that containers do not run as root. In Kubernetes the restricted Pod Security Standard enforces this.

Related. mTLS, SBOM, Kubernetes, Container Escape