Integrating Zero Trust Container Security in CI/CD Pipelines: Best Practices and Tools

Containers have been a massive step forward for cloud native applications, ensuring companies can reduce the impact on end users while keeping new features, bug fixes and patches continuously up to date on a far more efficient infrastructure. At the same time, the fast-paced nature of CI/CD pipelines into containers, while great for agility, also means vulnerabilities can slip into production if container security solutions aren’t addressed early.

Let’s examine key strategies for integrating container security scanning and additional security measures at every stage of development. We’ll also explore zero trust security tools and techniques for preventing issues before they reach production.

Why Containers Need Strong Security Policies

While containers offer flexibility and efficiency, they also introduce new vulnerabilities. Traditional applications had closed deployments with the OS and assets bundled, allowing security to be easily applied. Containers, however, can be more vulnerable due to misconfigurations, like running privileged containers or insecure images that introduce malware.

CI/CD pipelines further heighten risk by providing direct access to live applications and handling third-party artifacts. Without strong security measures, these factors create multiple attack points, meaning it’s essential to secure containers before they reach production.

Adding Security to Your CI/CD Pipelines and Containers

There are several ways to integrate security into your development lifecycle, including these essential best practices:

• Shift-Left Security: DevOps teams must now integrate security from the first line of code, making it a priority early in development rather than an afterthought.
• Automated Security Scanning: Automating security scans ensures container images and dependencies are continuously checked for vulnerabilities throughout the pipeline, speeding up issue identification and resolution.
• Embedding Security Gates: Security checks at each stage of the CI/CD pipeline prevent insecure code from progressing to production by blocking unapproved containers.
• Image Hardening: Use smaller base images and trusted repositories and regularly update containers to reduce the attack surface and minimize vulnerabilities.

Using Container Security Best Practices on Your Own CI/CD Pipelines

Deploying container security solutions involves a mix of manual and automated techniques to ensure security is integrated at every stage. For example, the security gate at the build stage can include things like:

• Threat modeling
• IDE security plugins
• Pre-commit hooks
• Secure coding standards
• Peer review

Some processes are manual, others automated, but they ensure security is part of the workflow — not an obstacle.

In the test and deploy stages, automated checks verify compliance with security standards. These container security best practices include: 

• Implement scanning and access controls to catch vulnerabilities early and stop risky containers from moving forward.
• Use continuous runtime scanning for containers, hosts and orchestration platforms to detect and address threats in real-time environments.
• Leverage tools and extensions to identify misconfigurations and enforce secure deployment practices.
• Enable real-time threat detection and blocking to protect against attacks like DDoS, DNS spoofing and zero-day vulnerabilities.
• Utilize AI to more accurately identify threats, recognize new threats sooner and minimize the impact of false positives.
• Secure application layer traffic between containers and pods to prevent unauthorized communications and block internal threats.
• Automate compliance checks for standards like GDPR or HIPAA.

These security measures can ensure continuous monitoring of containers during runtime, helping enforce security policies, detect anomalies and ensure containers behave as expected.

Overcoming Common Container Security Challenges

Trying to force security into your CI/CD pipeline can really slow down CI/CD cycles. However, if you’ve integrated security into the beginning of your process, there are ways to mitigate the impact of security on the speed of your deployments. 

These options include optimizing scan times and running parallel security checks. Fine-tuning automated security tools to minimize false positives can also speed up the process. Manual review stages can provide additional assurance for critical issues without unnecessarily delaying your pipelines.

Building a Security-First Culture

Security isn’t just about your tools. Creating a culture of security-first development sets your applications up for long-term success. Use continuous monitoring and actionable feedback to help keep security a strategically growing process. Regularly provide training on secure coding practices and proper use of container security solutions to ensure your entire team is up to date on the best container security solutions.

Reducing Vulnerability with Container Security Tools and Practices

Security is only going to become more important in your CI/CD pipeline, so having the practices, tools and culture to keep security front and center in your development processes will keep your applications secure and reliable. 

While your people will be some of your biggest assets in maintaining security across the development lifecycle, you need to make sure you have the right tools and practices in place to ensure a robust container security strategy. Adopting container security software not only safeguards your infrastructure but also speeds up your CI/CD process by catching issues early and keeping production safe. 

Learn more about SUSE Cloud Native Security, formerly known as NeuVector Prime.