Do containers offer better security?

Containers work in isolation to run applications. This is, by design, safer as it’s separated from the operating system. However, if there are vulnerabilities or misconfigurations in container dependencies or host machines, it creates security challenges.

What are the three pillars of cloud infrastructure security?

They are - visibility, identity, and access.

What are examples of container services?

Popular container services are – Amazon ECS, Kubernetes, Docker, etc.

Expert Cloud Container Security - Microminder Cyber Security

Cloud Container Security Services by Microminder

Protect your cloud containers at each stage of their lifecycle from cyber threats with Microminder’s end-to-end cloud container security services.

What Is Cloud Container Security?

Cloud container security means safeguarding containerised applications and their infrastructure from cyber threats. It uses secure tools, technologies, and policies, such as scanning container images, detecting and removing vulnerabilities, and optimising access controls to defend your containers, software supply chain, CI/CD pipelines, data, and runtime environment. It aims to reduce the attack surface, comply with applicable regulations, and mitigate security risks with cloud containers, such as runtime threats and misconfigurations.

Microminder’s Cloud Container Security services safeguard each stage of your container lifecycle - development, testing, deployment, runtime, and maintenance. We ensure you only get to enjoy the benefits of cloud containers, such as faster build times, improved collaboration, and scalability and flexibility without worrying about threats.

Challenges with Securing Cloud Containers

No doubt cloud containers have made it a lot easier for developers to build, deploy, and scale cloud-native applications. But like any other IT architecture, there are security concerns with containers as well:

Misconfigurations

If the host system has incorrect configurations or insecure file access permissions, attackers could find and exploit them to access your container environment. Similarly, a container orchestration system, such as Kubernetes, with misconfigurations lures attackers. They may misuse weak security policies in your k8 clusters to access your services.

Malicious Network

Attackers attempt to enter your network by deploying malicious traffic. Vulnerabilities and misconfigurations in your network systems, such as open ports and weak security settings, make it easier to breach your network and spray malware in cloud clusters.

Unpatched Vulnerabilities

Vulnerabilities in your host operating system, such as design flows, coding errors, software bugs, weak credentials, etc. are dangerous. If an attacker finds these vulnerabilities, they can exploit them to access your containers, acquire root privileges, and manipulate systems. Similarly, host applications and containers with vulnerabilities, such as outdated Docker versions and misconfigs, allow attackers to enter your container environment.

Compromised Container Images

Vulnerabilities (such as CI/CD misconfigurations) in container images, especially those publicly available, invite cyber attackers. By exploiting these vulnerabilities, attackers can access your container image build process. This allows them to inject harmful code into your container images.

Container Escape

Attackers can abuse misconfigurations in the host system or exploit container runtime vulnerabilities to break out of the container. This way, they acquire the host system’s root privileges to perform harmful actions, such as loading malicious kernels, infecting processes, and modifying the host’s file systems.

Unsecured Dependencies

Using unsecured dependencies in containers, such as open-source libraries and third-party tools, can make your container environment vulnerable to attacks.

Cloud Container Security with Microminder CS

Secure your cloud containers and infrastructure from unauthorised access and cyber attacks with Microminder’s cloud container security solutions. We safeguard every stage of the container lifecycle, from development and deployment to runtime by monitoring the infrastructure continuously, scanning for misconfigurations and vulnerabilities, and eliminating threats.

Get your containers to safety. Let our security experts guide you with valuable recommendations, security strategies, and implementation assistance. Cloud container cyber security services at a glance:

CI/CD protection
Container runtime security
Continuous monitoring
Vulnerability management
Access control and management
Cloud container compliance management

How We Secure Your Cloud Containers?

We at Microminder offer cloud container services to complement your organisation’s IT environment. Here’s how we secure containers:

Protect your cloud containers with MCS

Container Image Scans

We regularly scan your cloud container images to spot threats, vulnerabilities, and misconfigurations in your containers throughout their lifecycle. This will secure Docker containers and other container types and their infrastructure from cyber threats, such as malware and unauthorised access, so you use only secure images at each stage.

Build Security

Vulnerabilities in the build phase, such as design errors, bugs in code, vulnerable open-source libraries, etc. serve as the entry point for attackers. We secure container build with the below capabilities and help reduce the burden on your security team and developers:

Authenticating the security of components, such as third-party tools, open-source libraries, etc.
Performing automatic checks on your container images and source code for security issues across various repositories (eg. GitHub) and registries (eg. Docker)
Providing software composition analysis to evaluate code security and compliance
Allowing only trusted container images to pass on to the production stage

Runtime Container Security

We use advanced tools to detect and eliminate threats and suspicious behaviours to provide container runtime protection. The best thing is it works without increasing overhead. You get:

Wide view of your complete IT environment – on-prem, cloud, and hybrid
Predictive threat intelligence with sophisticated AI and ML algorithms
Behaviour-based automatic threat detection
Advanced threat hunting and forensic analysis to address security incidents faster

Strong Access Controls

To prevent unauthorised access and privilege escalations, we help you enforce stronger access controls in your cloud environments. We do this with:

Identity and access management (IAM): Make sure only the right users with the right levels of permissions access your cloud containers
Role-based access controls (RBAC): Users get to access cloud resources based on the nature of their job roles
Least privileged access: Give users minimum access permissions, enough to complete their tasks
Zero trust access: Trust no user or account completely; verify them before granting permission to your cloud containers and other resources
Authentication and authorisation: Use multi-factor authentication (MFA) tools and authorisation mechanisms, such as single sign-on and biometrics to verify users

Misconfiguration and Vulnerability Management

Microminder CS reduces risks on your containers by spotting and squashing container misconfigurations and vulnerabilities. To achieve that, we provide you with full visibility of your cloud resources to make detection easier, through the development, deployment, and runtime stages. Whether you have a public, private, or cloud environment, we keep it safe from attacks with advanced vulnerability management services.

Receive a CVSS score to understand how critical a vulnerability is and prioritise mitigation
Get a detailed risk mitigation plan to eradicate threats
Obtain a vulnerability report with detected vulnerabilities and remediation techniques to prevent future threats

Threat Detection and Response

Detect and respond to container threats faster with Microminder’s threat detection and response services. We use advanced AI and ML algorithms to predict and prioritise threats so you can remove them on time. The best thing is – our solutions have minimal false positives and don’t disturb your ongoing operations.

Working in the background, we continuously monitor your container environment for hidden threats and vulnerabilities and resolve them before they convert into an attack. To keep your business secure, we sit together with your team to create a detailed incident response plan to combat threats with confidence.

Compliance Management

Contain environments bring unique security and compliance challenges due to complex configurations and multi-cloud environments. Microminders CS helps you comply with applicable compliance standards and regulations, such as UK GDPR, HIPAA, SAMA, NIST, ISO 27001, and PCI DSS.

Get detailed compliance audits to adjust your security measures
Review and remove licences that don’t align with compliance requirements
Get alerts about misconfigurations during the build, deploy, and runtime stages

Microminder: Alfanar's Top Choice for Penetration Testing Services

"After engaging and experiencing multiple Penetration Testing vendors, we highly recommend Microminder services to companies looking to enhance their security measures. Their expertise and commitment to delivering outstanding results make them a reliable choice for securing your organisation."

Syed Murtuza Haneef

IT Security Manager

Moby2

"We had the pleasure of working with Microminder Cybersecurity for infrastructure pen testing and firewall configuration review, and I have to say, their work was nothing short of splendid. Firstly their onboarding process was so quick, the pre-requisites and availability of testing was agreed on the same day..."

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Viktor Dimitrov

Product Owner - Moby2

Almarai

"Almarai Company is a Saudi multinational dairy company that is listed on the Tadawul Stock Exchange. It specializes in food and beverage manufacturing and distribution. The company's main offices are located in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. We engaged with Microminder Cybersecurity for Penetration Test and Security Review."

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Gordon Bateman

Head of Enterprise Risk Management - Almarai

Haberfeld

"We engaged with MCS on a ransomware table top exercise; other companies offered 1 of 2 things. Either an in person exercise held on paper or a software you download and create the exercise yourself. Microminder was the only company we talked to that combined both approaches."

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Haberfeld

Banking Consultant for Community Banks across the United States

CENTOGENE

"CENTOGENE is the unique and essential partner for patients, physicians, and biopharma in rare, metabolic, and neurodegenerative diseases, covering diagnostics, discovery, clinical development, and market access. With a global reach spanning over 100 countries and a network of 30,000 physicians, we've diagnosed over 2,500 rare diseases. Our extensive testing portfolio of 19,000+ genes and 10,000+ tests, revolutionizes early disease detection."

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CENTOGENE

The Rare Disease Company

Knowledge Anywhere

"Knowledge Anywhere is an eLearning award-winning company. We chose Microminder Cyber Security for our Web application Pen test due to their experience in the business and positive reviews as well as competitive prices.
The project experience went smoothly with above average communication and a clear task list. We would definitely recommend MCS to others as they are very thorough with a competitive timeline."

Bob Linear

Senior Systems Engineer - Knowledge Anywhere

Freight Fix

"Freight Fix is a shipping broker who chose MCS for their Pen Test and Vulnerability Test due to the positive testimonials on MCS. We would absolutely recommend MCS as the project went very well with clear explanations and a very good web interface."

Richard Stephenson

CEO - Freight Fix

BlackLine

"Thank you for the valuable work your team did on our maturity assessment of our incident response processes. The insights MCS provided were meaningful and have helped us better understand our areas for improvement. Thank you again for your partnership and support throughout the process."

BlackLine

Leading provider of cloud software that automates and controls financial close and accounting processes

Monument RE

"Microminder Cyber Security were involved in the initial launch of our online platform and are well placed to move quickly as partners of Monument Re Group. The speed of delivery and communication levels give everything the company needs when working with partners.

The reviews that were undertaken are supported with real-time feedback on dashboards and are fully documented at the end giving full reports and remedial recommendations."

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Monument RE

Monument Re Group is a Life Assurance Company

A.R.M. Holding

"Thank you for your exceptional efforts and unwavering support throughout the duration of the project. The support provided by the entire MCS team has been greatly appreciated, and I look forward to collaborating with you on upcoming projects. Thank you once again for your hard work."

A.R.M. Holding

Multi-focused economic enabler through local, regional and global investments.