The explosive growth of containers is not surprising because the technology (most obviously Docker) alleviates several problems for deploying applications. Developers need simple packaging, rapid deployment, reduced environmental dependencies, support for micro-services, generalized management, and horizontal scalability – all of which containers help provide. When a single technology enables us to address several technical problems at once, it is very compelling. But this generic model of packaged services, where the environment is designed to treat each container as a “unit of service”, sharply reduces transparency and audit-ability (by design), and gives security pros nightmares. We run more code faster, but must in turn accept a loss of visibility inside the containers. It begs the question, “How can we introduce security without losing the benefits of containers?”

This research effort was designed to confront all aspects of container security, from developer desktops to production deployments, to illustrate the numerous places where security controls and monitoring can be introduced into the ecosystem. Tools and technologies are available to run containers with high security and strong confidence that they are no less secure than any other applications. We also have access to capabilities which validate security claims through scans and reports on the security controls.

We would like to thank Aqua Security and Tripwire for licensing this research and participating in some of our initial discussions. As always we welcome comments and suggestions. If you have questions please feel free to email us: info at securosis.com.

You can download all or part of this reseach from the website of either licensee, grab a copy from our Research Library, or just download a copy of the paper directly: Complete Guide to Enterprise Container Security (PDF).

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