Container Image Security: How to Find Vulnerabilities and Fix Them

Introduction:

Many security companies employ container security best practices for delivering softwares successfully. This is because container security helps prevent security threats and related consequences. Companies employ container security best practices to maintain DevOps workflow. It helps them to:

• Shift left security, the first step is prevention.
• Protect all your assets.
• Know everything that happens in your organization, monitoring and detecting issues as fast as possible.
• Plan for incident response, because attacks are inevitable.

Purpose of the Article:

This guide covers the ways container image security scanning helps to ensure the best security from various perspectives.

Docker Image Security Scanning:

This is a procedure of detecting those vulnerabilities that are embedded in the image codes and known as well.

By using this image security technique, you can easily fix all the errors before pushing the image to Docker Hub or any other registry.

Classifications:

The classification of vulnerabilities is based on the impact and severity. The categories include:

Critical:

• Include highest risk measures
• Mitigation and instant attention are necessary here
• Excessive use can cause severe conditions, such as data breaches, unauthorized access, and system compromise.

High:

• High severe vulnerabilities are important but not so much
• This may let the hackers access the system with no profile like they can gain unauthorized access
• It does not mean there is any action needed, as the problem can not be ignored anyway

Medium:

• Their impact or hit is moderate
• This might create a situation in which limited access can be gained by unfair means
• Necessary preventive steps can reduce risks significantly

Low:

• These have minimal impact issues
• They also do not have a direct impact on the system but can be prone to little errors if not dealt with properly.

How to Find Vulnerabilities?

Security companies use different tools or softwares to find vulnerabilities. These include:

• Trivy
• Docker Desktop
• Trivy Reports
• Trivy Filtering

Fixing Secure Container Images Pulled From a Public Registry:

You can fix vulnerabilities by many means, including but not limited to:

1. You can get an all-in-one paid solution just like Snyk.
2. You can do it manually by upgrading your docker image to the latest version that contains fewer vulnerabilities.
3. You can create a custom image where the problematic dependencies have been removed or upgraded (which you can do manually or with a tool like Copa).

Exploiting Vulnerabilities In Base Container Image Security Scanning:

• Outdated Packages: Hackers can easily exploit outdated packages included in the original images. This is where container image security is needed at most.
• Insecure Default Configurations: Default configurations have permissive settings that can easily be exploited.

Leveraging Host System Vulnerabilities:

• Kernel Exploits: Attackers can easily use kernel vulnerabilities to escape the environment of container image security
• Misconfigurations: If there are any misconfigurations in the hosting system, it can create conditions of privilege escalation

Last Words:

Container image security is one of the critical features of modern software or application development. By understanding the techniques used by attackers to gain elevated privileges within containers, organizations can implement effective mitigation strategies to protect their sensitive data and applications.