Cloud Container Security From Build-Time to Run-Time

Visualize your containerized applications in real-time, for a clear understanding of communications, launches and other cloud runtime behaviors

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Better Container Monitoring Means Better Container Security

The truth is scary: any compromise at the host level will compromise all other containers. Containers share the same kernel and execute instructions as the host, which greatly complicates the attack surface for IT security teams.

Lacework delivers native container security support, reducing the attack surface, and detecting threats in a containerized environment. Our cloud container security monitoring platform automatically discovers every container across a user’s environment and clusters them based on different behaviors. We then visualize your containerized applications in real-time, providing a clear understanding of communications, launches and other cloud runtime behaviors.

Host Security

Containers can be thought of as lightweight virtual machines with much leaner system requirements. Virtualization emulates the guest system, translating every instruction between the guest and host. Containers, on the other hand, share the kernel and execute instructions on the host directly. This implies that the main attack surface is still the host as it is shared across containers and any compromise at the host level can compromise all containers. The other challenge is that not all services are run in the container as there is a long list of OS level and management services which run outside containers and are part of the attack surface.

Cloud Container Security Accomplished

Containers with similar behaviors are placed into a single, logical cluster – called a Polygraph – each with a baseline of expected characteristics and behaviors. The Polygraph is Lacework’s foundation for securing containers, where a deep temporal baseline is built from collecting high fidelity machine, processes, and user interactions over a period of time.

Clustering containers based on behavior dramatically simplifies the visualization of a containerized cloud in a Lacework Polygraph by representing dozens or even hundreds of similar containers as a single item. This means new containers or configuration changes do not generate alerts as long as behaviors stay within the expected baseline.

Lacework’s container security platform creates multiple types of polygraphs based on different behavioral categories. They include:

The communication polygraph baseline tracks communication patterns between different container clusters;
The launch polygraph baseline watches the launch characteristics of all clusters;
The privilege change polygraph baseline contains data about all user privilege changes within the containers;
The user activity polygraph baselines user behavior over time.

With Polygraph, IT security teams can detect anomalies, generate appropriate alerts, and leverage a tool to investigate and triage issues across AWS, Azure, and GCP platforms.

Visit for the Security, Stay for the Compliance

Unlike most other container security solutions that only identify non-conforming compliance rules, Lacework goes a step further and alerts your team about any behavioral anomalies – even when the associated configurations meet the required standards.

Lacework’s cloud container security monitoring platform brings multi-cloud checks into one dashboard by continuously monitoring configuration changes and API activity for containers across AWS, Azure, and GCP platforms. CIS benchmark scans are performed during container image development and container deployments. Our security platform also includes supplemental checks based on industry best practices and common compliance frameworks like PCI-DSS, SOC 2, HIPAA, NIST, etc.

From automated threat detection to compliance, Lacework’s offers a comprehensive approach to container security that ensures nothing is left unprotected, which point solutions can’t guarantee.

Visualize Your Containers and Workloads with Polygraph

Polygraph, Lacework’s foundation for securing containers, helps customers visualize their cloud, containers, and workloads by organizing activities into behaviors and tracking those behaviors over time. By collecting and correlating high-fidelity machine, process, and user interactions, Polygraph can detect anomalies, generate high-quality alerts, and provide a tool for users to investigate and triage issues across their cloud container environments.