Containerization has flipped the way we build, deliver, and scale applications. Containers offer developers lightweight, efficient and portable environments to write and organize code and make it easy to transfer code from development to production. But as more businesses embrace containerized workflows, securing these environments, especially during the time-sensitive runtime phase, has never been more important. Runtime security is about monitoring, detecting and reacting to threats when containers are running and are vulnerable to threats.
That being said, Container Runtime Security is becoming ever more important to maintain that any vulnerabilities that are introduced after deployment are eliminated in real-time. This post looks at the future trends and technologies shaping the container runtime security landscape and how these developments will help organizations secure their containerized environment in an always evolving threat landscape.
The Importance of Container Runtime Security
In DevOps pipelines, microservices architecture and cloud-native applications, containers are a fundamental technology. The ability to build once and run anywhere, and maintain a consistent environment on different systems is one of its strengths. This flexibility of containers, however, brings security concerns for the runtime phase of containers, where containers are actively processing data and executing code. Containers are vulnerable to a variety of attacks at runtime including privilege escalation, malicious code injection, cryptojacking and zero days.
Having expanded the attack surface, organizations today are shifting toward cloud-native architectures, which include runtime security as a necessary part of their security posture. Container runtime security is in the live, containerised environment, it can check for anomalies, block or prevent unauthorized access, and respond to security incidents in real time. With the container ecosystem growing more complex and larger, runtime security adapts to new threats and challenges. Below are the trends and technologies that will define the future of container runtime security.
1. Advanced Threat Detection with AI Machine Learning
Among the most important recent container runtime security trends is the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI and ML) to detect and resolve threats. The security tools that are driven by AI can handle the massive load of data coming off of containers and can detect patterns that might indicate a possible security breach. These tools watch for real-time container behavior, network traffic and system performance and identify when something starts to deviate from normal operations.
Because machine learning models can be trained on historical data to predict potential threats and adapt to new attack vectors, there’s a certain ‘short term’ utility in deploying them. These models get better and better at making that call over time — predicting malicious behavior before it turns into a full-blown attack. For instance, machine learning can spot the small indication of cryptojacking (when attackers are taking over containers to mine cryptocurrency) by tracking resource intake patterns and alerting on any inordinate spikes in CPU or memory use.
Container runtime security in the future will move further towards the widespread usage of AI and ML technologies to automate detection and response processes. These intelligent systems will prompt with real-time alerts and, in some cases, will even take action against compromised containers or isolated services without manual intervention. By leveraging AI, organizations can raise their runtime security posture, decrease the number of false positives and handle new threats.
2. Continuous Monitoring with Shift-Left Security
The ‘shift left’ security philosophy says that we need to put security into our SDLC early so that vulnerabilities can be found and fixed prior to deployment. Shift left security was originally about the build and deployment phases, but increasingly shifts left security is also being applied to runtime.
By allowing security teams to monitor containers throughout runtime, they can detect and respond to threats which otherwise may have gone undetected during early development. This allows secure containers throughout their life cycle, from development to production. Organizations can automate security checks by integrating runtime security into their continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines to reduce the risk of human error, misconfigurations, and opportunities for anomalies.
For instance, container monitoring at runtime can identify the instances of container configurations or access controls that expose the container to potential vulnerabilities. As these are automatically flagged, which can roll back to the previous secure state automatically, preventing potential exploits. The runtime security is being moved left by continuously monitoring containers for threats, not just after they have been deployed into the production environment.
3. The Zero Trust Security for Containers
The zero trust security model is that all users and systems should not be assumed to be trusted regardless of whether they are located inside or outside the organization's network. This philosophy is very relevant for the container ecosystem, where perimeter-based security models don’t cut it anymore. Containers run in distributed, multi cloud environments, leading to adoption of zero trust principles for securing container workloads at runtime.
If we are talking about container runtime security, zero trust means that every action in the container environment is validated and authorized. For example, you could use micro-segmentation within a container to restrict the interactions between one service and another, thereby blocking lateral movement if you had attacker access to an area of the environment. Moreover, identity and access management (IAM) controls may be used to restrict specific containers to be accessed only by authorized users and systems.
Next generation container runtime security tools will implement zero trust models enforcing strict security policies such that anything that can be run, or access to data, or the initiation of network communications is only allowed by verified entities. With zero trust, organizations can reduce the risk of unauthorized access and the scope of impact from a security breach in the container environment.
4. Cloud Native Security Solutions
With the rise of organizations adopting cloud-native architecture, the demand for container runtime security solutions to these environments grows. Cloud-native applications are deployed across multiple cloud platforms, microservices and Kubernetes clusters, making it difficult to secure. Traditional tools for on premises infrastructure may not give you the visibility and control you need to secure cloud native containers.
The security solutions built for the cloud-native runtime are built assuming they will be used within the context of container orchestration platforms such as Kubernetes. These tools offer real-time visibility into what is happening in a container and identify security threats, and enforces security policies everywhere. An example of this is that cloud-native security platforms can monitor Kubernetes clusters for misconfigurations, vulnerabilities and policy violations on the fly to keep containers secure in the dynamic and multi-cloud world.
With the maturity of cloud-native security tools on the horizon, we will see them becoming more sophisticated, deeper integrated into the cloud platform and more automated.
5. Securing Edge Computing and IoT Containers
Containers are being deployed to run applications in decentralized resource constrained environments that are growing fast: edge computing and the Internet of Things. Moreover, these edge and IoT deployments often present special security characteristics given their nontraditional data center deployment and their often limited ability to access centralized security infrastructure.
Lightweight, scalable runtime security solutions that operate remotely with limited connectivity are required to secure containers in edge and IoT environments. Real time security tools must be able to detect threats and anomalies in real time, even under high network latency, or limited resources.
We designed future container runtime security solutions to be tuned to the edge and IoT environments. By giving these tools there does not need to be centralized security infrastructure, organizations will be able to secure containers running at the edge without having to secure to them. The demand for runtime security as the distributed environments of edge computing and IoT devices continue to grow will be fundamental in protecting the systems from cyber threats.
6. Runtime Security Integration with DevSecOps
With security becoming increasingly part of the development process, DevSecOps, which embeds security within each part of the DevOps lifecycle, is increasingly in the foreground. And increasingly, runtime security is being seen as a critical DevSecOps component—containers must stay secure once they've been deployed.
Going forward, there will be increased integration of runtime security tools with DevOps workflows, enabling developers and security team to work together more effectively. As an example, automatic security tools can be plugged into CI/CD pipelines and used to do continuous runtime monitoring, vulnerability scanning and policy enforcement. This will allow an organization to immediately respond to a security threat without impacting development processes.
Embracing the DevSecOps principle can help organizations understand that security can’t be an afterthought – that it must be baked into the entire lifecycle of the container, from development to runtime. This will give rise to safer, more robust applications which are resistant to the new threat landscape.
Final Thoughts
The exciting developments and emerging technologies marking the future of container runtime security are about to improve containerized environments significantly. During the runtime phase, there are a huge number of tools at organizations’ disposal to protect containers, such as AI-driven threat detection, zero-trust architectures, and cloud-native security solutions.
