Ah, the wonders of technology. In the innovation-rich Information Age, we are the beneficiaries of a nonstop wave of new advancements, each offering the ability to execute vital tasks faster and more efficiently than ever before.

However, along with each breakthrough comes potential security vulnerabilities.

Such is the case with containerization. Though its roots date back four decades, the rapid rise in the use of container technology today is revolutionizing cloud computing, specifically with regard to how businesses today develop and deploy applications and services. Recent estimates indicate that well over half of Fortune 100 companies have embraced the use of containers, and the numbers appear to be growing fast.

The list of benefits is too impressive to ignore. According to an IBM report (“The Benefits of Containerization and What It Means for You”), these include:

  • Portability between different platforms and clouds
  • Efficiency through using far fewer resources than virtual machines and delivering higher utilization of compute resources
  • Agility that allows developers to integrate with their existing DevOps environment
  • Higher speed in the delivery of enhancements
  • Faster app start-up and easier scaling
  • Easier management
  • Improved security by isolating applications from the host system and from each other

You’ll notice that one of the bullet points is “improved security.” However, the use of containerization also introduces potential security vulnerabilities that users must address. We’ll explore these in detail, but first a quick recap on what container technology is all about.

What Are Containers?

“Everything at Google runs on containers,” according to a report on the company’s website. “Containerization allows our development teams to move fast, deploy software efficiently and operate at an unprecedented scale.” Google reports that it starts over two billion containers, every week.

But what are they? Here are several definitions.

A container (Read more...)