VULNERABILITY MANAGEMENT IN THE AGE OF CONTAINERS – A REVIEW

Abstract

While the concept of containerization has existed for a few decades, the use application containers skyrocketed with the introduction of Docker. Containers facilitate a microservice-based architecture that makes software projects extremely scalable and modular. Kubernetes is a container orchestration tool that makes container deployment, scaling and load balancing effortless. While these technologies incredibly reduce the operational overhead, they also bring to the fore additional security challenges the make Vulnerability Management ever more important. A successful cybersecurity program at any organization will address image scanning at various stages in the product deployment pipeline. No matter what the size, maturity and risk appetite of an organization, there are some approaches, or a combination thereof, that can be leveraged to effectively manage risk. The purpose of this paper is to explore the different paradigms of image scanning and provide context for organizations to make informed decisions.