DevSecOps is the most effective means of detecting and remediating known vulnerabilities in application containers.
TL;DR
- Containers introduce security risks across images, runtimes, dependencies, and orchestration layers that traditional security tools miss.
- DevSecOps automates vulnerability detection in CI/CD pipelines, enabling teams to identify and remediate issues before production deployment.
- Essential container security tests include image scanning, static code analysis, dependency checks, configuration audits, and runtime monitoring.
- Harness STO orchestrates container security testing across multiple scanners, normalizing results and integrating findings directly into developer workflows.
Securing Containers With DevSecOps
Containers have revolutionized software development and deployment, offering consistency and efficiency across environments. A container packages up a short piece of code– the container image– along with all of its dependencies, binaries, and libraries. The widespread adoption of containers also comes with new and challenging security risks that organizations must address. Containers are inherently isolated, but vulnerabilities still exist at various levels—within the container images, the runtime, the orchestration, and the underlying infrastructure. For modern containerized applications, DevSecOps is an effective methodology for securing containers by automating security testing and shifting it left to uncover known vulnerabilities as early in the software development lifecycle as possible.
Container Security Vulnerabilities
Containers have a variety of vulnerabilities that pose a significant security risk. Organizations building modern applications must ensure that their software developers, DevOps teams, and application security teams are prepared to address these vulnerabilities proactively to strengthen the application’s overall security posture. Here are some common types of container vulnerabilities:
Insecure Container Images
Using container images with known vulnerabilities can expose the entire infrastructure to cyberattacks. Attackers can exploit these vulnerabilities to compromise the host system, gain unauthorized access, or execute malicious code. DevSecOps stakeholders must regularly scan container images for known vulnerabilities and keep them up to date.
Container Runtime Misconfigurations
Misconfigurations in container runtimes can lead to inadequate isolation between containers, allowing unauthorized access and lateral movement by an attacker.
Vulnerable or Outdated Container Dependencies
Containers regularly include dependencies such as libraries and frameworks. These can contain security vulnerabilities, as is often the case with many open source dependencies.
Exposed Secrets And Sensitive Data
Storing sensitive data or secrets within containers without adequate protection can lead to data breaches or unauthorized access. Organizations need to use strong encryption and dedicated solutions such as secrets managers for storing secrets securely.
Addressing Container Security With DevSecOps
In DevSecOps, application security tests are executed by security scanners that are configured to analyze different aspects of the application and report on any vulnerabilities that could be exploited. The DevSecOps methodology is essential for container security, because security tests are seamlessly integrated and run in a shift left manner across software pipelines which makes it easier for developers to remediate their code.
Testing For Container Security Vulnerabilities
There are several different types of application security tests that should be run as part of a DevSecOps program delivering secure containerized applications:
Static Code Analysis (SCA)
SCA is used to inspect an application’s source code. During the software development process, it aims to identify known vulnerabilities like potential injection attacks, insecure coding practices, or unhandled exceptions. Integrating SCA in CI/CD pipelines has several advantages. First, it helps decrease the number of vulnerabilities that find their way to production. SCA also helps developers to adhere to coding standards and best practices. It also streamlines the development process by automating security checks, reducing manual effort and accelerating the delivery of secure software.
Container Scanning
Container scanning tools are purpose built to analyze containers and their contents against a database of known vulnerabilities. If, for example, a library or dependency within a container image contains a known vulnerability, the scanner will flag the image as insecure.
Secret Detection
Secret detection scanners look for different types of sensitive information, such as passwords or API keys that can sometimes be hard-coded in application code by developers. For example, API keys are often in the format of a long string of letters and numbers. Similarly, passwords are often stored as hashes. By searching for these patterns, potential secrets in container images can be identified.
Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST)
DAST scanners are used to simulate attacks against containers while they are running. This allows developers and application security teams to identify vulnerabilities inherent to the running application, and which would otherwise not present themselves in the code. DAST tools analyze how containers behave at runtime, such as how they handle network traffic, how they validate inputs and their authentication mechanisms.
Take Container Security Testing To The Next Level With Harness STO
Harness Security Testing Orchestration (STO) is shift-left security built for your CI/CD pipelines and designed for developers. With Harness STO, you can seamlessly integrate security scanners and orchestrate application security tests anywhere across your build pipelines and enable developers to rapidly remediate vulnerabilities through intelligent prioritization and deduplication, and AI-driven remediation guidance.
Learn more about how the Harness Security Testing Orchestration (STO) module can help you shift application security testing left and accelerate vulnerability remediation without toil.
