With cloud-native development being the new norm, it is now more important than ever to secure the container environments. The microservices and the use of containers as a new approach have advantages in terms of speed and scalability, but they also bring new challenges. Traditional security measures are not very effective in such environments. That is why container image hardening is now considered one of the most promising approaches to cloud-native security.
Tools such as RapidFort provide real-time hardening that makes it possible to fortify the containers by default.
In this article, we will discuss why the process of hardened container images is not just an option but is the future of secure software delivery.
The Growing Attack Surface in Cloud Environments
Applications use the concept of workloads in the container environment in different settings. In an image layer, it can have hundreds of packages. Out of which very few are frequently used, and lots may exist that are rarely used or could have been installed a long time ago. These components may be sourced from third parties or added as third-party extensions. They can contain definite security risks that open up new vectors of attack.
Hardened container images do not contain this overhead, as only the necessary bits are included in the container images. Evaluating code and not using unnecessary parts with unnecessary subsystems minimizes the risks of attacks.
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What Is Container Image Hardening?
Container image optimization reduces and secures the amount of data in the container image, eradicating unnecessary libraries, tools, and files. The aim is to minimize the avenues through which the attack can happen and remove all possible points of vulnerability.
This also helps to conform to the market standards, especially in the industries that demand high levels of security for their products. In the case of tools like RapidFort, hardening is done based on the actual behaviour at run time. This results in secure, optimized, and compact container images.
Why Hardening Container Images Matters for DevOps?
DevOps is all about automation and velocity, but security tends to be a constraint. The traditional security scans are often slow and based on a reactive approach. A company uses hardened container images to take this proactive approach.
When applied to CI/CD pipelines, hardening can create secure images from the ground up. This is in line with the shift-left security approach of integrating protection at the initial stages of development rather than relying on a reactive approach.
Enhanced Compliance and Zero-CVE Targets
Companies must meet security standards, especially in the financial, healthcare, and government industries. Those who use auditors often need to verify that the container images do not contain any known vulnerabilities.
The hardened container images allow teams to strive for Zero-CVE targets. In this case, using a runtime analysis, software security tools determine what is used during runtime and eliminate all the rest. This reduces the number of CVEs in the image and helps to achieve compliance objectives.
Long-Term Cost and Performance Benefits
Apart from security, hardened container images also bring operational efficiency. Smaller, hardened images load faster, consume fewer resources, and are easier to scale across the cloud environment. Smaller image size means less storage and network space needed, and enhanced runtime performance is beneficial to the programmer and the consumer.
Such benefits put hardening container images not only as a security measure, but also as a business advantage.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is container image hardening different from scanning?
Scanning helps to outline potential threats, while hardening involves removing unnecessary software and packages.
Can hardened images still be updated?
Indeed, they can be replenished with necessary packages while keeping the system simple and safe.
What tools help with hardening container images?
Tools like RapidFort can help in the hardening process by analyzing the actual behavior of the software during runtime and stripping out unnecessary features.
