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Overview

Container security architecture is a comprehensive framework designed to protect containers throughout their lifecycle. This framework encompasses several key components, each focusing on different aspects of container security. Let’s look into the primary component:

  • Container images security
  • Registry security
  • Orchestrators security
  • Container engine security

Container images security

To implement container image security, you need:

  • Vulnerability scanning – scanning images as part of your build process makes a lot of sense for identifying known vulnerabilities, and failing your builds when these vulnerabilities are encountered is a must for keeping your containers secure
  • Minimal base image – containers are lightweight, and they are lightweight for security reasons too. By using a minimal base image that includes only the necessary components for your applications to run, you reduce the potential attack surface by eliminating unnecessary packages, thus eliminating potential vulnerabilities
  • Image signing – you should only use images from a known source

Registry security

Container registries are responsible for storing container images after they are built. Securing the registry involves:

  • Implementing least privilege access – strict access control to manage who can push and pull images will solve many potential security issues
  • Regular registry scan – scanning images shouldn’t be done only when you are building the image but also throughout the lifecycle of that image
  • Protect against interception – you should encrypt your images during transport to and from the registry

Orchestrators security

Nowadays, containers are used mostly with an orchestrator. The most popular orchestrator is Kubernetes, and there are many things you can secure for your orchestrator:

  • RBAC – ensure users get the least privileged access
  • Network policies – implement network policies to control the traffic flow
  • Secrets management – manage secrets securely, rotate them, and have controlled access to them

Container engine security

The container engine is responsible for running containers on the host machine, and securing it involves:

  • Implementing runtime security – monitor and protect containers in real-time (anomaly detection, blocking suspicious events)
  • Host security – ensure users get the least privileged access to the host that runs the containers
  • Resource limitations – set resource limits to prevent distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks