From Code to Cloud: Building a Container Security Strategy That Works

As enterprises continue to update and modernize their application infrastructure, container adoption has skyrocketed. Gartner predicts that by 2028, over 90% of new application development and legacy refactoring will rely on container technology – up from less than 25% in 2024. This seismic shift brings unparalleled agility and scalability but also opens a new frontier for cyber threats. Container security has become a core operational necessity.

In this blog, we explore the container security landscape, highlighting emerging threats, evolving practices, and strategic recommendations for infrastructure and operations (I&O) leaders.

Containers: The Doubled-Edged Sword of Digital Agility

Containers are transformative. They package application code, dependencies, and runtime into lightweight, portable units. This approach ensures consistent behavior across development, testing, and production environments. As a result, containers are foundational to cloud-native application development, DevOps practices, and broader digital transformation initiatives.

But the same attributes that make containers valuable – speed, scalability, and ability to run anywhere – can also make them harder to manage. Unlike traditional apps, containerized environments often involve hundreds or even thousands of components and moving parts, each a potential attack vector if not properly secured.

The Security Blind Spots in the Container Lifecycle

Container security isn’t a single technology. It’s a discipline spanning the entire software development lifecycle (SDLC). Gartner emphasizes that security must be integrated “into all aspects of planning for container adoption.” This includes:

• Container image integrity: Ensuring images are free from vulnerabilities and sourced from trusted registries.
• Supply chain security: Mitigating risks introduced through third-party libraries, CI/CD tools, and infrastructure automation.
• Runtime protection: Detecting and responding to anomalies once containers are deployed.
• Policy enforcement: Applying consistent governance across development and production.
• Observability: Logging, monitoring, and tracing container activity to support threat detection and forensics.

Unfortunately, many organizations still treat security as a bolt-on rather than a built-in discipline – something to be added after containers are deployed, instead of integrated throughout the development process. This reactive approach leaves critical blind spots across the container lifecycle, from image creation to runtime operations. Without proactive, continuous security baked into every phase – from design and coding to deployment and maintenance – enterprises risk exposing vulnerabilities that attackers can exploit at scale. Shifting security left, embedding it into CI/CD pipelines, and extending it into production environments isn’t just best practice, it’s essential to keep pace with the containerized threat landscape.

Supply Chain Attacks: A Rising Threat

One of the most concerning insights from the Gartner Hype Cycle is the persistent and growing risk posed by insecure container supply chains. Containers often rely on a complex web of open-source tools, base images, third-party libraries, and automation scripts, all of which can introduce vulnerabilities if not properly vetted.

High-profile incidents like the SolarWinds compromise and the Log4Shell vulnerability have demonstrated the wide-reaching impact of even a single compromised component. More recently, the XZ Utils backdoor – an attempted supply chain attack discovered in early 2024 – highlighted how deeply malicious code can be embedded into widely used Linux packages, nearly slipping past detection before hitting production environments.

Supply chain attacks on containers can take several forms:

1. Compromised base images:

Attackers inject malicious code into popular container images hosted on public registries.

2. Infected third-party libraries:

Vulnerabilities or backdoors introducing code that has hidden weaknesses or security holes, can make your container system vulnerable to attack, especially when you use pre-built code from other developers introduced through dependencies included in building time.

3. CI/CD pipeline compromise:

Attackers exploit weak credentials or misconfigurations in continuous integration tools to inject malware into builds.

4. Infrastructure as code (IaC) risks:

Misconfigured or malicious IaC templates can open backdoors into containerized environments.

To mitigate these risks, enterprises are adopting supply chain security best practices that include:

• Use of trusted and verified registries for base images and regularly scan them for known vulnerabilities.
• Implement SBOMs (Software Bill of Materials) to track and audit dependencies.
• Sign and validate images using tools like Docker Content Trust or Sigstore.
• Secure CI/CD pipelines with strong authentication, role-based access controls, and regular audits.
• Continuously monitor build artifacts and container activity for anomalies and policy violations.

To reduce the risks from supply chain vulnerabilities, it’s helpful to take a more cautious approach with container images and dependencies. By regularly checking the source and contents of the base images you use, enterprises can ensure that the containers haven’t been tampered with or compromised. Keeping track of all the external components your containers rely on, such as libraries and tools, can help spot potential risks before they make their way into production.

Runtime Risk: It’s Not Just About Build-Time Anymore

Even with secure builds, containerized applications can behave unexpectedly at runtime due to misconfigurations, software bugs, or emerging zero-day threats. That’s why analysts like Gartner underscores the need for runtime protection as a pillar of container security.

Runtime protection includes capabilities such as:

• Behavior monitoring to detect deviations from expected container activity.
• Network segmentation and micro segmentation to limit lateral movement.
• Automatic policy enforcement through Kubernetes admission controllers.
• Runtime vulnerability scanning and live patching.

As environments expand across hybrid and multi-cloud landscapes, enterprises must ensure their runtime defenses can adapt and scale alongside their workloads to effectively address evolving threats and maintain security across diverse infrastructures.

The Role of Platform Engineering and Automation

Security often suffers when it’s treated as a manual or separate process. One of the most promising developments is the emergency of platform engineering, where teams build and maintain reusable platforms to streamline application development and operations.

This shift enables “security as a code” embedding controls directly into the platform, such as hardened base images, policy-as-code frameworks, and pre-approved service configurations. Combined with automation, this approach ensures consistent enforcement at scale and minimizes human error.

Observability is Security

In the container world, observability has evolved beyond its traditional role in performance monitoring to become a fundamental pillar of security. As containers become more widely used in complex environments, the need for robust observability has intensified. Analysts highlight the necessity of logging, monitoring, and tracing to ensure that enterprises can not only detect malicious activity in real-time but also investigate incidents thoroughly and comply with evolving regulatory frameworks. These practices enable security teams to maintain visibility across dynamic containerized systems, quickly identifying potential threats and minimizing response times.

A key enabler of effective observability is OpenTelemetry, an open standard that simplifies and standardizes the collection of telemetry data across heterogeneous environments. OpenTelemetry facilitates consistent instrumentation for containers, microservices, and other cloud-native technologies, providing a unified approach to monitoring and security.

However, tools like OpenTelemetry are only effective if they are supported by strong processes and skilled security practitioners who can leverage the insights from the telemetry data. This requires organizations to invest in training, incident response plans, and a culture of security awareness to act swiftly on the insights that monitoring tools provide.

The Edge is the Next Security Frontier

Containers aren’t confined by data centers and clouds anymore – they’re moving to the edge – transforming industries like retail, manufacturing, and smart cities. The shift is highlighted in Gartner’s Hype Cycle, which forecasts that the adoption of containers at the edge will continue to grow, creating new opportunities and challenges for enterprises. For CISOs and security leaders, this transition has initiated a re-evaluation of security strategies to address the unique risks that edge environment introduce.

Unliked centralized environments, edge locations are often remote, decentralized, and exposed to a range of physical and operational threats. In edge environments, containers are deployed on devices or machines that can be accessed by local staff or even third parties, raising concerns about data theft and other malicious attacks.

Moreover, limited bandwidth and connectivity in many edge locations complicate the ability to perform updates and maintain real-time monitoring of containerized applications. In the absence of consistent network access, the risk of outdated security patches or unmonitored container activity increases, making edge contains more vulnerable to attack.

To secure edge containers, security leaders should focus on several key areas:

• Software Delivery Pipelines: Strong, automated pipelines that support CI/CD are essential for ensuring that security updates, patches, and new container images are securely delivered to edge locations. Enterprises need to integrate security checks throughout the pipeline to identify vulnerabilities before deployment.
• Device Hardening: Edge devices are often exposed to physician risks, and as a result device hardening becomes critical. This includes applying strict access controls, disabling unnecessary services, and implementing endpoint protection measures to prevent unauthorized access and manipulation.
• Secure Over-the-Air (OTA) Updates: Given the remote nature of many edge locations, securing OTA updates should be encrypted and authenticated to prevent bad actors from exploiting the update mechanism to introduce threats or malware into the environment.


As edge computing becomes more prevalent, the need for a robust, layered security strategy for containers at the edge must be included. CISOs and security leaders are already adapting their approach, leveraging automated security tools, secure delivery pipelines, and a continuous monitoring to manage the risks of containers in edge environments.

The Role of AI and FinOps in Container Security

As enterprises adopt containers to improve agility, the face the challenge of managing both the security and cost of their rapidly scaling infrastructure. Containerized environments, with their dynamic nature and short lifecycle, introduce a unique set of complexities for FinOps (Cloud Financial Operations) teams. Balancing cost optimization with robust security in these environments requires specialized strategies and tools.

AI and FinOps are emerging as indispensable partners for containerized workloads. With the proliferation of containers and the complexity of managing multi-cloud and hybrid infrastructures, AI-driven tools can proactively monitor and secure these environments. These tools analyze vast amounts of container data in real-time, detecting anomalies and predicting potential threats. AI can identify patterns in container behavior, including resource consumption spikes or security risks, that might go unnoticed by traditional methods, enabling FinOps security teams to make quicker, data-backed decisions.

On the cost management side, containerized environments present specific challenges not typically seen in other IT infrastructures. Containers are lightweight, scalable, and dynamic, which can lead to unpredictable costs – especially when they’re deployed across multiple cloud providers or when workloads are frequently spun up and down.

Here’s where FinOps comes into play. By integrating AI-driven security insights into FinOps practices, enterprises can gain visibility into both the security posture and the financial impact of their containers. This integration helps ensure that security investments are optimized, preventing over-provisioning while still maintaining robust security controls across the entire container lifecycle.



In 2025, enterprises recognize that securing containers and managing cloud costs must go hand-in-hand. By leveraging AI in FinOps, businesses can ensure that their containerized environments are not only cost-efficient but also secure, avoiding unnecessary security gaps and unexpected financial surprises as their infrastructure scales.

Key Strategic Recommendations

As container adoption accelerates, enterprises are embracing strategic approaches to securing their containerized environments. Here are a few key recommendations for building a resilient container security strategy:

Integrate Security Across the SDLC

Security must be embedded at every state of the software development lifecycle (SDLC). This includes incorporating security measures during the build phase (such as scanning container images for vulnerabilities), securing the runtime environment, and continuously monitoring for threats in production.

Automate Container Security

By automating security checks across all stages of the application lifecycle, enterprises can reduce the risk of human error, prevent configuration drift, and ensure vulnerabilities are detected early. While automation is a core feature in integrated security platforms, it is this automation that facilitates rapid identification of misconfigurations or unauthorized changes, enabling a proactive approach to container security.

Use of AI to Monitor Behavior at Runtime

To protect running containers, enterprises can implement AI for runtime security measures to monitor behavior for suspicious activity. This includes anomaly detection and automated alerts when unusual behavior is detected in real-time, reducing the time to respond to operational threats.

Deploy Observability Tooling

Observability identifies issues before they become security breaches. Use observability tools that provide real-time visibility into your container environments, including metrics, logs, and traces. This allows security teams to detect and investigate anomalies quickly.

Tailor Strategies for Edge and Serverless

Containers are not limited to centralized cloud environments. With edge computing and serverless architectures continuing to rise, security strategies are encompassing these distributed environments. Ensure that container images, runtime environments, and communication channels are secured in both edge and serverless scenarios.

The Road Ahead

The future for container security is filled with both challenges and opportunities. As enterprises continue to adopt container technology, the need for a comprehensive, proactive security strategy becomes evident. The rapid evolution of container security tools, coupled with the rise of AI and automation, offers great potential for improving both security posture and operational efficiency.

However, to stay ahead of unfamiliar threats related to containers, enterprises must adopt modern security tools. The adoption of security as a code, the integration of security practices throughout the SDLC, and the use of AI to anticipate and mitigate risk are all essential components of a future-proof container security strategy.

Today, the key to success is agility. Containerized environments are dynamic and constantly evolving, and the same flexibility must be applied to security strategies. Enterprises that adapt quickly to these new security challenges, while embedding a culture of security across development, operations, and security teams, will be best positioned to succeed.

The future of contain security is promising, but it requires commitment, collaboration, and forward-thinking strategies. With the right tools, policies, and practices enterprises can secure their container environments and confidently navigate the complexities of modern application deployment.

Author



Ann Chesbrough

Vice President of Product Marketing, BreachLock