Edera Launches Secure Runtime Environment for Container Applications
Edera today made available a hardened runtime environment based on containers that reduces the ability of cybercriminals to compromise cloud-native applications.
In addition, Edera revealed it has joined both the NVIDIA Inception Program and is making its platform available on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Marketplace.
Edera CTO Alex Zenla said existing container platforms provide access to a shared Linux kernel, which enables cybercriminals to launch jailbreak attacks that enable them to take over the underlying IT infrastructure. The Edera platform makes use of sandboxes to isolate workloads in a way that eliminates the root causes of privilege escalation, lateral movement, and data exfiltration because the host is sheltered from vulnerable system calls and kernel-level attack paths, she added.
That approach also reduces the number of add-on cybersecurity tools and platforms that are currently required to secure container environments, noted Zenla. Instead of generating thousands of alerts that require manual investigation, the hardened runtime prevents attacks from ever occurring in the first place, said Zenla.
Additionally, Edera plans to add a quarantine functionality that leverages application programming interfaces (APIs) to provide an instant “kill switch” that severs all network connections when triggered, which, in addition to stopping data breaches, will also preserve environments for forensic analysis.
Edera, in effect, is providing the isolation capabilities associated with virtual machines without requiring IT teams to rely on legacy technologies that add additional overhead to the IT environment.
It’s not clear how much organizations today are investing in securing container environments, but many IT teams are making assumptions about the level of security being provided. While it’s simple to rip and replace containers that have vulnerabilities, there are still often thousands of containers running in production environments that can be compromised using jailbreaking techniques that are now well understood by cybercriminals. As more container applications are deployed in production environments, the overall level of risk steadily increases.
Containers are not more secure than legacy technologies so much as they are differently insecure, noted Zenla. Many of the platforms being relied on to run modern container applications are simply too ripe to be misconfigured, she added.
Regardless of the approach to container security, the need for more efficient approaches is evident. One of the primary reasons for adopting containers is to accelerate the pace of application development. If the security frameworks being employed are cumbersome to use, one of the primary reasons for using containers becomes less beneficial. In fact, the overall goal should be to make IT platforms more secure, versus continuing to bolt on security tools and frameworks that increase the total cost of IT.
Hopefully, the day will come when legacy platforms that were never designed with security in mind are eventually replaced. In the meantime, IT leaders might want to estimate how much time, effort and money is being invested in making up for that lack of fundamental security compared to the cost of migrating to a better platform.
