Compare Container Security Companies For The Best Protection
Hercules Montero
Compared to other security products, there is an extra dimension to consider when evaluating container security companies -- specifically, the deployment lifecycle stage you wish to bolster. There are products that target the development side of the DevOps equation and those that are more operations-focused. Likewise, some of the portfolio products address both.
Sticking to container security best practices is critical for successfully delivering verified software, as well as preventing severe security breaches and its consequences. These best practices are an important part of implementing a robust Cloud Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP).
According to the 2020 CNFC Survey, 92 percent of companies are using containers in production, a 300 percent increase since 2016. Thus, Kubernetes, OpenShift, and other container technologies are present everywhere.
Once your application is built and packaged, it is common to copy it inside a container with a minimal set of libraries, dependent frameworks (like Python, Node, etc.), and configuration files. You can read our Top 20 Dockerfile best practices to learn about the best practices focused in securing containers building and runtime.
The best way to make sure you can check this kind of setting for container security is to automate it as much as possible. Several tools exist for this, mainly based on static configuration analysis, allowing you to check configuration parameters at different levels and provide guidance in fixing them.
Your strategy should translate in policies that a container vulnerability scanner can use to trigger alerts for detected vulnerabilities according to some criteria, and to apply prevention and protection at different levels, like:
Start by including prevention and security best practices. Then, apply protection measures to your resources, mostly hosts and workloads, but also cloud services. Continue monitoring and detecting anomalous behavior to take action, respond, investigate and report the discovered incidents. Forensics evidence will close the loop: fix discovered vulnerabilities and improve protection to start over again, rebuilding your images, updating packages, reconfiguring your resources, and create incident reports to the future security incidents.
Formerly NeuVector, SUSE Rancher provides life cycle container security from DevOps pipeline vulnerability protection to automated security and compliance in production. In addition, Rancher includes centralized authentication, role-based access control (RBAC), and Center for Internet Security (CIS) benchmarking.
Runtime security is critical for real-time monitoring of containers and Kubernetes clusters. It identifies and responds to risks and vulnerabilities that may develop during runtime, assisting in the protection of your applications from attacks and unauthorized access even after they have been deployed.
We analyzed a range of critical factors in evaluating container and Kubernetes solutions and scored each product in a rubric to come up with the best container security products. Our evaluation criteria included the following fundamental factors:
Different container security tools can be compared by evaluating key features such as compatibility with your cloud infrastructure, vulnerability management, threat detection, compliance, integration, resource efficiency, customization capabilities, scalability, user-friendly interface, support and documentation, and cost.
Container and Kubernetes security solutions are essential security measures for companies adopting containerization and cloud-native technologies. These solutions give you the necessary capabilities for proactively detecting vulnerabilities, monitoring container activity, ensuring compliance, and responding quickly to security problems.
Another key issue is the underlying kernel architecture shared by containers. Securing the host is not enough to ensure protection. You also need to maintain secure configurations to limit container permissions and ensure proper isolation between containers.
Below, we discuss some of the main factors to consider when choosing the best cloud security solution, and then compare the top five cloud security vendors: Check Point Software, Palo Alto Networks, Amazon, Microsoft and Zscaler.
Kubernetes data plane hardening - To protect the workloads of your Kubernetes containers with best practice recommendations, you can install the Azure Policy for Kubernetes. Learn more about monitoring components for Defender for Cloud.
Defender for Containers provides real-time threat protection for supported containerized environments and generates alerts for suspicious activities. You can use this information to quickly remediate security issues and improve the security of your containers.
Aqua compares containers in runtime with their originating images and looks for items such as executables, binaries, and privileges that were not present in the original image. When any deviation is detected, Aqua issues an alert and can automatically block the specific unauthorized process.
This will clearly be an interesting year for container security. By following proactive, best practices throughout the development, testing, staging, and production stages, you can make your containerized applications secure by design.
Having a good understanding of how containers work and their best practices is the first step to keep your data and applications safe from cyber threats. Nevertheless, your organization requires a container security solution compatible with its current tools and platforms.
Orca brings together core cloud security capabilities, including vulnerability management, multi-cloud compliance and posture management, cloud workload protection, container security, and more in a single, purpose-built solution.
There are many open source point solutions for container security, in addition to paid offerings. Open source container security tools usually focus on scanning containers for common vulnerabilities and exposures. They utilize publicly available lists of known vulnerabilities to identify these risks in container images. Open source container security products can work as a baseline for security, especially if there are in-house resources for managing the tools more proactively. However, they are less likely to be sufficient on their own, and are best used when complemented with other security measures, such as application security testing tools.
But if a container image is compromised before being signed, best practice, or the signing process is compromised, then you are unknowingly distributing malware. That's why you need to be able to check that your container images, signing process etc. are all behaving like they should, and have not been compromised.
For deployments done in Kubernetes environments, O'Meara noted that some useful scanners available include Checkov and Kubesec. Checkov is used to prevent cloud misconfigurations during build time for Kubernetes, Terraform, and other infrastructure-as-code languages. Kubesec is used to validate the configuration and the manifest files used for Kubernetes cluster deployment and operations. Other tools include Anchor Engine, for scanning container images, and Dockle, for making sure a Dockerfile has been written according to best security practices.
By adhering to a set of best practices, using modern software supply chain security tools, and taking your security regimen beyond vulnerabilities to the other ways your software can be compromised, you can protect your containers and their underlying infrastructure throughout the development pipeline.
Here is a list of the six best container security tools:\n
- \n
- Datadog Cloud SIEM\n
- Anchore\n
- Sophos Cloud Native Security\n
- Bitdefender GravityZone\n
- Sysdig Secure\n
- RedHat Advanced Cluster Security for Kubernetes\n
- Aqua Container Security\n\n","author":"@type":"Person","name":"Liku Zelleke","description":"Liku Zelleke is a field support technician at DXC Technology and a prolific blogger. He has over two decades\u2019 experience in the IT industry starting at Ethiopian Airlines in 1997, holding a number of roles during his 25 years with the company from Helpdesk Tech Support through to Database Administrator, Systems Administrator, Network Administrator and a Systems Support Professional.\nHe hasn\u2019t looked back since the day, years ago, when he discovered he could combine that experience with his other passion: writing. Today, he writes on topics related to network configuration, optimization, and security.\n","url":"https:\/\/www.comparitech.com\/author\/"}},"@type":"Question","name":"What is a container in security?","answerCount":1,"acceptedAnswer":"@type":"Answer","text":"Container security provides testing, monitoring, and remediation to identify weaknesses in container operations, including how those containers interact with other systems and supporting services. Operations teams need to implement security monitoring so that they can identify and shut down live attacks. \n","author":"@type":"Person","name":"Liku Zelleke","description":"Liku Zelleke is a field support technician at DXC Technology and a prolific blogger. He has over two decades\u2019 experience in the IT industry starting at Ethiopian Airlines in 1997, holding a number of roles during his 25 years with the company from Helpdesk Tech Support through to Database Administrator, Systems Administrator, Network Administrator and a Systems Support Professional.\nHe hasn\u2019t looked back since the day, years ago, when he discovered he could combine that experience with his other passion: writing. Today, he writes on topics related to network configuration, optimization, and security.\n","url":"https:\/\/www.comparitech.com\/author\/","@type":"Question","name":"Why containers are not secure?","answerCount":1,"acceptedAnswer":"@type":"Answer","text":"No IT system is completely secure and those that have never been attacked got lucky and just haven\u2019t been attacked yet. It doesn\u2019t pay to be complacent about container security because the financial rewards for hacking are large as are the potential losses for attacked organizations. \n","author":"@type":"Person","name":"Liku Zelleke","description":"Liku Zelleke is a field support technician at DXC Technology and a prolific blogger. He has over two decades\u2019 experience in the IT industry starting at Ethiopian Airlines in 1997, holding a number of roles during his 25 years with the company from Helpdesk Tech Support through to Database Administrator, Systems Administrator, Network Administrator and a Systems Support Professional.\nHe hasn\u2019t looked back since the day, years ago, when he discovered he could combine that experience with his other passion: writing. Today, he writes on topics related to network configuration, optimization, and security.\n","url":"https:\/\/www.comparitech.com\/author\/"]} "@context":"http:\/\/schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":["@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.comparitech.com\/","@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Net Admin","item":"https:\/\/www.comparitech.com\/net-admin\/","@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"The Best Container Security Tools for 2023","item":"https:\/\/www.comparitech.com\/net-admin\/best-container-security-tools\/"]Net Admin The Best Container Security Tools for 2023