The authenticity and integrity of the container image during the container image lifecycle is part of the overall security posture of the container platform. This begins with the container image creation and pull of a base image from a trusted source for child container image creation and the instantiation of the new image into a running service. If an insecure protocol is used during transmission of container images at any step of the lifecycle, a bad actor may inject nefarious code into the container image. The container image, when instantiated, then becomes a security risk to the container platform, the host server, and other containers within the container platform. To thwart the injection of code during transmission, a secure protocol (TLS 1.2 or newer) must be used. Further guidance on secure transport protocols can be found in NIST SP 800-52. |