High Severity Vulnerabilities

Overview

The Containers with High Vulnerabilities metric provides the count and details of container images in your environment that contain high-severity vulnerabilities. This information is invaluable for IT Operations (IT Ops) and Security Operations (Sec Ops) engineers to prioritize their efforts in securing containerized applications.

Value for IT and Security Engineers

Security Perspective

• Prioritization of Risks: High-severity vulnerabilities often have significant impact, such as allowing unauthorized access or privilege escalation. This metric helps Sec Ops engineers prioritize these risks for immediate remediation.

• Proactive Risk Management: Identifying containers with high vulnerabilities enables teams to mitigate threats before they can be exploited, reducing the attack surface.

• Compliance Adherence: Many compliance frameworks require organizations to address high-severity vulnerabilities promptly. This metric helps demonstrate adherence to such standards.

Operational Perspective

• Infrastructure Stability: Containers with unaddressed high vulnerabilities can impact the reliability of applications. IT Ops engineers can use this information to stabilize production environments.

• Deployment Hygiene: Ensures that only secure container images are deployed into production environments, reducing potential downtime due to exploitation.

• Trend Monitoring: By tracking changes in this metric over time, IT Ops teams can evaluate the effectiveness of their vulnerability management processes.

Use Case Scenarios

• Vulnerability Remediation: Teams can prioritize patching or replacing affected containers, focusing first on those with high vulnerabilities.

• Audit and Reporting: Use this data to generate compliance reports that highlight actions taken to address critical security issues.

• Security Posture Improvement: Integrate this metric into security dashboards to continually monitor and enhance the organization’s container security posture.

This widget is a critical tool for maintaining secure, stable, and compliant containerized environments. It allows IT and Sec Ops engineers to take informed actions that minimize risk and protect organizational assets.