Digest #184: Database Ransomware, 2 billion AWS Requests, AI-Powered Kubernetes, and DevOps Skills Worth $200K

Database ransomware attacks, AWS bots gone wild, Terraform’s new secret-hiding trick, Shopify’s 30TB/min monolith, and the skills set to earn DevOps pros $200K in 2026. Plus new devtools.

Welcome to this week’s edition of the DevOps Bulletin!

Wiz revealed how attackers are turning databases into ransomware targets using nothing but SQL, while an engineer on Hacker News shared how an AWS bot sent 2 billion requests a month with no clear way to stop it. Jeff Geerling regrets building a $3,000 Raspberry Pi AI cluster, and Shopify engineers explained how they move 30 TB of data per minute with a monolithic design that still scales.

On the hands-on side: Terraform’s new ephemeral values that hide secrets from state files, Postgres 18’s RETURNING upgrades, and AI-powered Kubernetes monitoring built with Prometheus, n8n, and OpenAI. Plus: a Kubernetes agent that lets you debug clusters using natural language, and twelve DevOps skills predicted to hit $200K salaries in 2026.

And don’t miss this week’s tools: AuditKit (multi-cloud compliance scanner), Kite (K8s dashboard), Kexa (alerting rules engine), HoneyBee (vulnerability lab), and Inkeep (AI agent framework).

All this and more in this week’s DevOps Bulletin, don’t miss out!

Newsworthy stories

• Defending against database ransomware attacks

• How to stop an AWS bot from sending 2B requests/month

• I regret building this $3000 Pi AI cluster

• How Shopify handles 30TB of data/minute with a monolithic architecture

• dev-requirements.txt is bad

• Postgres 18: OLD and NEW Rows in the RETURNING Clause

• Fundamentals of DevOps and Software Delivery has been published!

Tutorials of the week

• Building a Kubernetes cluster with 1M+ active nodes

• Why ephemeral resources in Terraform matter

• How to use AI to make Kubernetes monitoring smarter

• Terraform actions: deep-dive

Enjoying the Bulletin? Consider supporting it with a paid subscription. You’ll keep the free Friday issues and get extras like bonus deep-dives, templates, and the full archive.

• Kubernetes agent for natural language debugging

• 12 DevOps skills that will command $200K+ in 2026

• Code-first CDC to ClickHouse

Videos of the week

---

📘 FinOps Tip of the Week

Instead of just seeing spending by service, use CUR and Athena to pinpoint the 10 most expensive resources that are driving your AWS bill. Here’s how:

• Enable CUR in the billing console and store it in S3 (hourly granularity).

• Create a database in Athena pointing to your CUR bucket.

• Run queries like:

SELECT line_item_resource_id, 
       line_item_product_code, 
       SUM(line_item_unblended_cost) AS total_cost
FROM cur_db.cur_table
WHERE bill_billing_period_start_date >= date_trunc(’month’, current_date)
GROUP BY line_item_resource_id, line_item_product_code
ORDER BY total_cost DESC
LIMIT 10;

💡 Pro tip: Tag your high-cost resources with Owner and Environment so accountability is clear in future reports.

📘 You’ll find more Athena queries for resource-level cost visibility in Practical FinOps

---

Projects of the week

• AuditKit allows you to scan AWS, Azure, and M365 for SOC2, PCI-DSS, HIPAA, CMMC, and NIST 800-53 compliance.

• Kite is a lightweight, modern Kubernetes dashboard that provides an intuitive interface for managing and monitoring your clusters.

• Kexa’s simple rules (open-source) make it easy to monitor and manage alerting of your entire cloud.

• HoneyBee is a tool for creating misconfigured environments to test vulnerabilities in technologies like Jenkins, Jupyter Notebook, and more.

• Inkeep is a platform for building agent-driven AI chat assistants and AI workflows.

Meme of the week

If you have feedback to share or are interested in sponsoring this newsletter, feel free to reach out via LinkedIn, or simply reply to this email. ⭐ Star the DevOps Roadmap on GitHub - the community guide for learning modern DevOps.