According to one recent study, there are an estimated 560,000 new malware programs being created on a daily basis – and that’s just referencing the ones that cybersecurity experts are discovering. Keep in mind that this takes into consideration both literal malware – meaning the types of programs that are created for the express purpose of doing a business harm – and those applications that could cause an issue down the line should someone take advantage of an inherent vulnerability.
If you needed a single statistic to underline the importance of proper, proactive cybersecurity for your business, let it be that one.
Another study indicated that on average, each employee with a business has access to approximately 11 million files between shared servers, personal storage devices, workstations and more. Yet at the same time, only about 5% of a business’ folders are properly protected – creating something of a “perfect storm” in the worst possible way.
But one of the most important things to understand about all of this is that the situation doesn’t just automatically get better if you’ve switched from on-premise computing to the cloud. Case in point: Microsoft Azure. Also commonly referred to simply as Azure, this is a SaaS, PaaS and IaaS tool offered by Microsoft that enables application management via remote data centers. The security of Microsoft Azure container instances is not something that anyone should be taking for granted. This is true for a wide array of different reasons, all of which are worth exploring.
Securing Microsoft Azure Container Instances: An Overview
One of the major reasons why organizations like Trend Micro and others speak so often about securing Azure container instances has to do with the fact that vulnerabilities are always being discovered – something Microsoft readily admits. These issues are nothing if not opportunities just waiting to be taken advantage of by someone who knows what they’re doing, which is why being proactive is pivotal in this situation.
In September of 2021, for example, Microsoft reportedly fixed a flaw that could potentially see data leak between users of various Azure container services. This comes on the heels of a similar bug that was discovered with Cosmos DB a few weeks prior.
In this particular case, very few technical details of what happened have actually been revealed. Still, Microsoft recommended that all users “revoke any privileged credentials” that had been deployed to Azure prior to August 31, 2021. They also indicated that rotating privileged credentials is a best practice that organizations should follow moving forward, as it can help mitigate risk should this type of thing happen again. Experts believe that these recommendations point to some type of authentication issue, although again details have been scarce.
This is also another one of the reasons why it’s always important to use the integrated visibility scanner when working with Azure container registry-based container images. Doing so requires users to enable both Azure Defender for container registries, along with CI/CD integration. At that point, when images are pushed to registries, users get scan results and a summary of the CI/CD situation immediately – all so that they can identify small problems quickly before they have a chance to become much bigger ones down the road.
Having said that, it’s also important to note that the vulnerabilities that are pointed out as a result of the scan of a registry could very well be different from those listed in CI/CD scans. This is because the registry scan is something that happens in a continuous manner, while the CI/CD scanning happens just prior to any workflow being pushed into the registry itself. This is also one of the reasons why it’s so important to have the right technology partner helping your organization with these and related matters – they can take care of all of this on your behalf so that you can better focus on growing your business, which is exactly how it should be.
In the end, working in a Microsoft Azure container environment certainly brings with it a wide range of different benefits that cannot be ignored. In addition to its virtually unparalleled speed of service, it also offers enhanced flexibility, an integrated delivery pipeline, disaster recovery features and more. While it’s certainly true that Microsoft invests more than $1 billion every year on cybersecurity research and development alone, this does not in and of itself relieve the user from the need to be proactive. Doing so would be a fatal mistake, and one that smaller organizations in particular simply cannot afford to make.
