Securing Containers with Seccomp: Part 1

Containers are increasingly adopted in businesses for their portability and scalability, but they also introduce new security challenges, such as potential exploitation leading to host compromise and unauthorized access to sensitive data. While traditional security measures like vulnerability scanning are integral, they often fall short in post-exploitation scenarios. The article introduces Seccomp-BPF, a Linux kernel feature for restricting syscalls, as a solution to mitigate damage from exploited container applications. Seccomp-BPF filters can be created using Red Hat’s oci-seccomp-bpf-hook tool, which records syscalls during execution to produce application-specific filters, limiting a container's capabilities to essential functions. Despite its potential, the integration of Seccomp into mainstream software development is hindered by its technical complexity and manual upkeep requirements. To overcome this, the article suggests automating Seccomp-BPF filter generation within Continuous Integration (CI) workflows, enhancing security in enterprise applications by aligning it with existing development processes.