Top 10 Container Security Scanning Tools for 2024

Over the past decade, there has been a significant surge in the usage of cloud and container technologies, making them foundational to modern software development. Containers allow developers to encapsulate applications and their dependencies efficiently, promoting both scalability and flexibility. However, this convenience introduces notable security challenges. As organizations increasingly adopt containerized environments, container security scanning tools have become essential for maintaining secure operations. These tools help identify vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and runtime threats, ensuring that the convenience of containers does not come at the cost of security.

In this article, we will explore the top container security scanning tools for 2024, providing both commercial and open-source options to help you make well-informed decisions about your security strategy.

What is a Container Security Scanning?

Container security scanning refers to the process of examining container images, environments, and configurations to identify vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, malware, and other potential security risks. These scans span the entire lifecycle–from the build phase to deployment and runtime.

The primary goals of container security scanning include:

1. Identifying Known Vulnerabilities: Detecting outdated libraries, software versions, and known Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs).
2. Checking for Misconfigurations: Ensuring containers are correctly configured to minimize security risks (e.g., using the least privilege principle).
3. Detecting Malware: Identifying malicious code or behaviors within the container environment.
4. Ensuring Compliance: Verifying that containers adhere to security benchmarks and industry standards like CIS, NIST, or internal policies.

Need For Container Security Scanning Tools

Traditional security methods are ill-suited for the highly dynamic nature of containers. These containers have short life cycles, and complex dependencies, and shift across multiple environments such as development, testing, and production, making manual security checks impractical. This is what makes modern container security tools an indispensable necessity.

Following are some key reasons why container security scanning tools are essential:

1. Automation and Speed: Automated vulnerability scanning tools can identify vulnerabilities early in the CI/CD pipeline, allowing developers to fix issues before they reach production. They support the shift-left security.
2. Real-Time Threat Detection: A modern container scanning tool offers continuous monitoring for malicious behavior and attack detection within live environments, enabling real-time response to threats.
3. Compliance: Many industries require adherence to strict security standards. Container scanning tools ensure compliance by automatically auditing container images against industry standards like PCI-DSS, HIPAA, and NIST.
4. Granular Visibility: Scanning tools provide detailed insights into each layer of a container image, revealing dependencies and potential security issues hidden deep within the container.

In short, container security scanning tools are indispensable for ensuring the secure operation of containerized applications, safeguarding against potential vulnerabilities from development to runtime.

Container Security Scanning Tools Landscape in 2024

Container scanning tools vary from commercial solutions to cost-effective open-source options. Here is a list of the top 10 container security scanning tools in the market.

#1. SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

Description

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud offers a robust CNAPP solution, merging advanced AI-driven capabilities for real-time threat detection and remediation within containerized environments. Unlike traditional endpoint security, Singularity Cloud extends protection to cloud-based workloads, effectively covering Linux and Windows servers, Docker containers, and Kubernetes clusters.

The platform’s unified structure equips security teams with enhanced visibility across diverse environments, simplifying management through consistent security policies and automated threat responses across cloud setups. Organizations can secure their workloads without compromising on the flexibility and speed essential to modern cloud strategies, achieving a balance between comprehensive security and operational efficiency.

Check out this tour video of the platform that demonstrates how the solution uses machine learning to identify vulnerabilities, stop runtime attacks, and provide visibility into container environments.

Platform at a Glance

• Cloud-Native Protection: Tailored for Kubernetes and containerized applications, with seamless integration into cloud platforms.
• AI-driven Threat Detection: Uses machine learning to automatically identify and mitigate threats in real-time.
• Unified Security: Consolidates endpoint protection, cloud workload security, and threat intelligence into a single platform.
• Secret Scanning: It can detect more than 750+ different types of secrets; you can prioritize risks with Verified Exploit Paths™
• Container and Kubernetes Security: SentinelOne supports Kubernetes, virtual machines, physical servers, and serverless. Its Cloud Workload Protection Platform (CWPP)  can secure public, private, hybrid, and on-prem environments.
• Cloud Security Posture Management: Users can perform agentless deployments in minutes. SentinelOne eliminates misconfigurations, ensures continuous compliance, and provides graph-based asset inventory.

Features

1. Autonomous Threat Detection and Response: Enables real-time detection and remediation of sophisticated threats without human intervention, covering both virtual machines (VMs) and Kubernetes pods.
2. Runtime Protection: Safeguards the integrity of active applications by identifying and stopping unauthorized processes, including malware and cryptojacking, to protect containerized workloads.
3. Enhanced Telemetry: Captures and contextualizes endpoint detection and response (EDR) telemetry, offering detailed insights into containers, such as cluster, node, pod, image name, and container ID, thereby boosting threat visibility.
4. Enterprise-Grade EPP and EDR: Utilizes SentinelOne’s endpoint protection (EPP) and EDR capabilities to block malware, speed up threat response, and facilitate advanced threat hunting.
5. Complete Forensics: Provides comprehensive forensic analysis of VMs or Kubernetes pods through a fully functional remote shell, enabling in-depth investigations.
6. Resource-Efficient Kubernetes Security: Offers runtime protection for all pods in a node with a single agent per worker node, eliminating the need for additional instrumentation.
7. Accelerated Incident Response: Enhances incident response through automated event correlation into Storylines aligned with MITRE ATT&CK techniques.
8. Streamlined Multi-Cloud Administration: Simplifies management across hybrid and multi-cloud environments with the multi-tenant SentinelOne console.
9. 1-Click Remediation and Rollback: Reduces mean time to repair (MTTR) with fast, single-click remediation and rollback actions, minimizing security incident impact.

Core problems that SentinelOne eliminates

1. Vulnerable Container Images: SentinelOne scans container images for vulnerabilities, ensuring only secure images are deployed.
2. Lack of Runtime Protection: Provides real-time monitoring to prevent attacks during container runtime.
3. Limited Visibility: Offers complete visibility into all workloads, helping security teams quickly detect and respond to threats.
4. CI/CD Pipeline Scanning: SentinelOne scans CI/CD pipelines and reports. It applies 1000+ out-of-the-box rules and lets you build custom rules. It can enforce shift-left container registry scanning and agentless scanning and run misconfiguration checks.
5. Manages Cloud Entitlements: SentinelOne tightens user permissions, implements role-based access controls, and manages cloud entitlements.

Testimonials

• Gartner Peer Insights:

“Implementing SentinelOne has significantly bolstered our detection and response capabilities, particularly during the merger process. The platform’s advanced threat detection and response features have enabled us to swiftly identify and neutralize security threats, ensuring a seamless and secure integration. SentinelOne’s scalability and ease of deployment were pivotal in extending our security measures to the merged company. The unified interface and centralized management facilitated a smooth transition, maintaining robust protection and operational continuity across the expanded organization. SentinelOne has been an essential tool in enhancing our Cyber Security posture during the critical phase.”

– Senior Manager, SecOps and IR, Banking Industry

• Peerspot:

“It’s more scalable and flexible than our previous solution because we don’t need to install any agents.”

 – Ritesh P. (Senior Manager at ICICI Lombard)

Ratings

• Gartner Peer Insights: 4.7/5
• Peerspot: 4.4/5

#2. Snyk

Description

Snyk is an intuitive,  developer-first security platform that helps organizations find, prioritize, and fix vulnerabilities in open-source dependencies, container images, and infrastructure as code (IaC) throughout the software development cycle (SDLC). It integrates seamlessly into the developer workflow, promoting security best practices from the start.

Features

1. Base Image Recommendation: Offer developer-ready base image options that can help automatically resolve vulnerabilities in container images.
2. Integrated IDE Checks: Finds vulnerabilities in Dockerfiles and Kubernetes workloads while coding to address the issue early.
3. Context-Aware Prioritization: Uses extensive application data to prioritize threats based on real-world risk factors, reducing noise and focusing on the most critical issues.
4. Native Git Integration: Scans pull requests and repositories to ensure vulnerabilities are detected and fixed before merging code.
5. Reporting and Analytics: Offers insights into security posture over time. Snyk ranks vulnerabilities based on real-world risk factors and prioritizes context. It allows companies to track movements over time and ensure ongoing compliance.

Ratings

• Gartner Peer Insights: 4.5/5
• PeerSpot: 4.1/5

#3. Palo Alto Networks (Prisma Cloud)

Description

Prisma Cloud is a comprehensive Cloud Native Security Platform (CNSP) from Palo Alto Networks that secures applications from code to cloud. It provides broad security and compliance coverage across the entire cloud-native technology stack.It also takes care of compliance audits and provides automatic remediation for cloud misconfigurations

Features

1. Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM): Provides continuous monitoring and compliance across cloud environments.
2. Cloud Workload Protection (CWP): Secures hosts, containers, and serverless functions.
3. Identity-Based Microsegmentation: Controls network communications based on identity.
4. Threat Detection and Prevention: Uses machine learning to detect anomalies.
5. Compliance Assurance: Supports frameworks like PCI DSS, HIPAA, and GDPR.
6. Infrastructure as Code Scanning: Detects issues in IaC templates before deployment.
7. Integration: Works with CI/CD pipelines and development tools.

Ratings

• Gartner Peer Insights: 4.5/5
• PeerSpot: 4.2/5

#4. StackRox (Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security)

Description

StackRox, now known as Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security for Kubernetes after its acquisition, provides Kubernetes-native security to protect containerized applications across build, deploy, and runtime phases.

Features

1. Kubernetes-Native Architecture: Integrates deeply with Kubernetes APIs.
2. Vulnerability Management: Scans images and running containers for vulnerabilities.
3. Configuration Management: Assesses Kubernetes configurations against best practices.
4. Runtime Threat Detection: Monitors and detects suspicious activities. It can stop threats before they hijack and escalate situations.
5. Network Visualization and Policy Enforcement: Maps network flows and enforces segmentation.
6. Compliance: Supports compliance standards like CIS Benchmarks and NIST.

Ratings

• Gartner Peer Insights: 4.6/5
• PeerSpot: 4.1/5

#5. Red Hat

Description

Red Hat provides enterprise open-source solutions, including Red Hat OpenShift and Advanced Cluster Security. It offers a robust platform for container orchestration and security in the Kubernetes environment and enables a seamless transition from DevOps to a DevSecOps strategy.

Features

1. Red Hat OpenShift: A comprehensive Kubernetes platform for container orchestration.
2. Advanced Cluster Security (ACS): Delivers integrated security for containerized applications.
3. Policy-Driven Security: Implements security policies across clusters.
4. Integrated DevSecOps: Embeds security into CI/CD workflows.
5. Compliance Enforcement: Automates compliance checks and reporting.
6. Automation and Management Tools: Simplifies cluster management and application deployment.

Ratings

• Gartner Peer Insights: 4.5/5
• PeerSpot: RedHat OpenShift 4.2/5

#6. Sysdig

Description

Sysdig offers cloud and container security solutions, focusing on securing cloud-native applications through deep visibility, runtime security, and compliance capabilities. Sysdig Secure is an all-in-one security solution for containers, Kubernetes, and cloud workloads. Built on the open-source Falco engine, Sysdig Secure provides full-stack security, from image scanning to runtime defense, ensuring compliance and continuous protection across your infrastructure.

Features

1. Secure DevOps Workflow: Integrates security into the DevOps pipeline. It detects and addresses vulnerabilities early.
2. Runtime Security with Falco: Detects threats at runtime using open-source Falco.
3. Vulnerability Management: Scans images and registries for known vulnerabilities.
4. Compliance Monitoring: Automates compliance checks for standards like PCI, HIPAA, and GDPR.
5. Incident Response and Forensics: Provides detailed insights for security investigations.
6. Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM): Monitors cloud configurations for risks. Sysdig improves response times as well.

Ratings

• Gartner Peer Insights: 4.9/5
• PeerSpot: 4.1/5

#7. Anchore

Description

Anchore provides container security and compliance solutions, focusing on deep image inspection and policy-based compliance checks to secure the software supply chain. Anchore provides integration options with the leading CI/CD tools to analyze, inspect, perform security scans, and evaluate custom policies against container images.

Features

1. Deep Image Scanning: Analyzes container images for vulnerabilities and secrets.
2. Policy-Based Compliance: Enforces custom security policies.
3. CI/CD Integration: Integrates with build pipelines to catch issues early.
4. Enterprise Platform: Offers advanced features like RBAC and detailed reporting.
5. SBOM Generation: Creates Software Bill of Materials for transparency.

Ratings

• Gartner Peer Insights: 4.7/5
• PeerSpot: N/A

8. Aqua Security

Description

Aqua Security provides a cloud-native application protection platform (CNAPP) that secures applications from development to production, focusing on containers, Kubernetes, and serverless environments.

Features

1. Vulnerability Scanning: Scans images, registries, and serverless functions.
2. Runtime Protection: Offers real-time threat detection and prevention.
3. Kubernetes Security: Provides configuration assessment and protection for clusters.
4. Cloud Security Posture Management: Monitors cloud infrastructure for misconfigurations.
5. Secrets Management: Protects sensitive data within containers.
6. Compliance and Governance: Ensure adherence to regulatory standards.

Ratings

• Gartner Peer Insights: 4.2/5
• PeerSpot: 4/5

#9. Clair

Description

Clair is an open-source project developed by CoreOS, Clair focuses on scanning container images for vulnerabilities and maintaining a continuous watch on upstream sources. It is widely used for container image scanning on various platforms.

Features

1. Vulnerability Analysis: Scans container layers for known vulnerabilities.
2. API Access: Offers RESTful API for integration.
3. Database Updates: Regularly updates vulnerability databases from sources like CVE.

Ratings

• Gartner Peer Insights: N/A
• PeerSpot: 4.3/5

#10. Trivy

Description

Trivy is a lightweight open-source vulnerability scanner that checks container images for known vulnerabilities and configuration issues. A unique feature of Trivy is its ability to cover both the OS package and language-specific dependencies. Additionally, its easy integration into the organization’s CI/CD pipeline makes it an easy-to-use tool.

Features

1. Comprehensive Scanning: Detects vulnerabilities in OS packages and application dependencies.
2. Infrastructure as Code Scanning: Identifies issues in Terraform, Kubernetes manifests, etc.
3. Ease of Use: Simple command-line tool with fast scan times.
4. CI/CD Integration: Easily integrates into pipelines for automated scanning.
5. Wide Coverage: Supports scanning of container images, filesystems, and Git repositories.

Ratings

• Gartner Peer Insights: N/A
• PeerSpot: N/A

How to Choose the Right Container Security Scanning Tool?

Choosing the best container security scanning tool for your organization depends on several factors, including your environment, security needs, and budget. The following are some key considerations:

1. Integration: Ensure the tool integrates with your existing infrastructure, including orchestration platforms like Kubernetes and cloud services.
2. Vulnerability Coverage: The tool should provide deep scanning for vulnerabilities in container images, dependencies, and configurations.
3. Runtime Protection: Look for a solution that offers real-time protection against threats during container execution.
4. Compliance: Ensure that the tool supports compliance auditing and can enforce security standards required by your industry.
5. Usability and Automation: Opt for a solution that is easy to deploy and manage, with automation features to reduce manual intervention.
6. Scalability: Choose a tool that can scale with your container infrastructure as it grows.

Ultimately, the right container security scanning tool should align with your organization’s specific requirements and adapt to evolving security challenges. By considering these factors, you can ensure comprehensive protection while maintaining operational efficiency.

Conclusion

As organizations scale their containerized environments, implementing container vulnerability scanning tools becomes critical to ensure the security of their applications. Tools like SentinelOne Singularity offer advanced capabilities such as autonomous threat detection, runtime protection, and seamless multi-cloud management to secure containers throughout their lifecycle.

Each tool discussed in this article has unique strengths, and the best choice depends on your organization’s specific needs. However, SentinelOne stands out as a top choice for its comprehensive features, empowering organizations to enhance their security posture while maintaining agility.

With this comprehensive guide, you can select a container security scanning tool that fits your organizational requirements, improves security, and ensures smooth integration into your DevOps pipeline. To see how SentinelOne can secure your container workloads with ease and efficiency, click here to request a demo or start a free trial.

FAQs

1. What is container security scanning?

Container security scanning involves analyzing container images and configurations for vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and malicious content.

2. How does runtime security work for containers?

Runtime security monitors live container environments for suspicious behaviors, such as unauthorized file access or network connections.

3. Can open-source tools provide effective container security?

Yes, open-source tools can provide effective container security and are widely adopted in the industry to enhance the security posture of containerized applications. Tools like Trivy, Clair, and Anchore Engine can provide effective security, especially when combined with enterprise-grade solutions.

4. How do I integrate container security into DevOps?

Integrate container security into your CI/CD pipeline by using tools that support automated image scanning and vulnerability detection during the build process.