Container image security is necessary to protect modern applications. However, there are different challenges to cope with while implementing container security. These challenges can be technical complexities of different cloud-based environments.
Sometimes there are organizational constraints can be a major concern for implementing security measures. The evolving nature of cyber threats can also be a concern for an orgnization. There can be various kinds of security concerns for an organization to secure container data.
Challenges in Container Image Security
The changing cyber attack can be one of the major issues for orgnization. For example, cloud-based applications do need to implement different security features.
Different challenges while implementing container image security are:
Lack of Visibility into Image Contents
The container images are prepared from multiple layers. So it is not easy to trace all components of images. There can be different dependencies in the creation of images. A business can implement container image security by using vulnerability scanning tools.
These vulnerability scanning tools include Trivy, Clair, and Anchore. These tools scan the image layers and identify risks in different components of images. Scanning images before adding them in a containerized environment provides additional measure.
Vulnerabilities in Third-Party Components
The third-party base images and libraries are the major concern for implementing security. The third-party base image is a cause of vulnerabilities. Such vulnerabilities can make all the container data insecure. Hackers can breach such kinds of vulnerabilities.
For container image security it is essential to scan third-party components. This would assist in addressing known vulnerabilities in the third-party components. Necessary to develop standards while adding third-party components inside your containerized data.
Managing Secrets and Sensitive Data
The container image security is imposed to protect your sensitive data. Keeping the core secrets of your organization is a major concern. The whole orgnization survival can be at stake if not able to protect sensitive data. One way to implement API keys and passwords is to reduce the exposure.
The secrets management tools can protect your sensitive data. These tools can provide solutions to generate the API keys and passwords for data protection. The best secrets management tools are HashiCorp Vault, AWS Secrets Manager, and Kubernetes Secrets.
Other Challenges for Container Image Security:
The other challenges for implementing container image integrity are the runtime security issues for the containers. A business may face the complexity of multi-cloud and hybrid environments.
Below are describing common issues while implementing the container image security.
- Runtime security for containers
- Complexity of multi-cloud
- Hybrid environments
- Lack of expertise and awareness
- Keeping up with evolving threats
- Ensuring image immutability
- Monitoring and auditing image usage
Conclusion
For an organization implementation of container image security is a complex issue. It is an essential task for protecting modern applications in the changing cyber environment. By imposing SOPs like visibility, compliance, supply chain security, and runtime protection. By doing this businesses can significantly reduce risks of data hacks.
