Why Runtime Security Matters#

Container images get scanned for vulnerabilities before deployment. Admission controllers enforce pod security standards at creation time. But neither addresses what happens after the container starts running. Runtime security fills this gap: it detects and prevents malicious behavior inside running containers.

A compromised container with a properly hardened runtime is limited in what damage it can cause. Without runtime hardening, a single container escape can compromise the entire node.

Security Contexts, Seccomp, and AppArmor#

Security contexts control what a container can do at the Linux kernel level: which user it runs as, which syscalls it can make, which files it can access, and whether it can escalate privileges. These settings are your last line of defense when a container is compromised. A properly configured security context limits the blast radius of a breach by preventing an attacker from escaping the container, accessing the host, or escalating to root.