Key Takeaways
- Vulnerability detection identifies known weaknesses by matching software components against current vulnerability intelligence.
- Automated vulnerability scanning is the primary method for detecting known vulnerabilities in container images and their components.
- SBOMs and SCA improve component visibility and help correlate vulnerabilities with affected packages and dependencies.
- SAST, DAST, and threat hunting provide additional security coverage beyond container image scanning.
- Vulnerability detection supports image and software supply chain security but does not replace runtime security or the broader vulnerability management process.
What Is Vulnerability Detection?
Vulnerability detection is the process of identifying known security weaknesses in container images, software packages, dependencies, and workloads. It gives security teams visibility into affected components so they can investigate and address them.
Vulnerability management includes detection as its first operational capability. Detection provides the findings that feed into the next stages of vulnerability management.
How Does Vulnerability Detection Work?
Vulnerability detection compares software components with current vulnerability intelligence to identify known weaknesses. In container environments, this process can identify affected packages, dependencies, and images before deployment and continue to detect issues as software changes.
The following steps describe the detection process:
- Identify components: Discover packages, libraries, and dependencies within container images or workloads.
- Match vulnerability data: Compare identified components and versions with vulnerability intelligence, including known CVE records and affected version ranges.
- Identify affected components: Determine which packages or dependencies match known vulnerabilities.
- Record findings: Capture details such as the vulnerability identifier, affected component, severity, and status.
- Reevaluate changes: Repeat detection when software components change, or new vulnerability intelligence becomes available.
Detection provides the findings that security teams can investigate and manage through the broader vulnerability management process.
What Are the Methods of Performing Vulnerability Detection?
The main methods are automated vulnerability scanning, threat hunting, SAST, and DAST. Each method examines a different part of the environment, from known vulnerabilities in software components to weaknesses in source code and running applications.
The following methods are commonly used:
- Automated vulnerability scanning: Compares software components with vulnerability databases to identify known vulnerabilities in container images, packages, and dependencies.
- Threat hunting: Searches for indicators of compromise and suspicious activity that automated scans may miss. It can use threat intelligence, logs, system inventories, and MITRE ATT&CK techniques.
- Static Application Security Testing (SAST): Analyzes source code without running the application to identify coding weaknesses before deployment.
- Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST): Tests a running application to identify vulnerabilities through its endpoints, responses, and behaviour.
For container security, automated scanning directly identifies vulnerabilities in image contents. SAST and DAST add application-level coverage that image scanning alone cannot provide.
How Do Container Image Scanning, SBOMs, and SCA Improve Vulnerability Detection?
Container Image Scanning identifies known vulnerabilities in image components. SBOMs provide an inventory of those components, while Software Composition Analysis (SCA) examines open-source software and dependencies for known security issues.
The following capabilities support vulnerability detection:
- Container Image Scanning: Analyses container image contents and matches identified components against vulnerability intelligence.
- Software Bill of Materials (SBOM): Provides an inventory of software components, versions, and dependencies that supports vulnerability analysis.
- Software Composition Analysis (SCA): Analyses open-source components and dependencies for known vulnerabilities.
- Component correlation: Combines component information with vulnerability intelligence to identify affected packages and dependencies.
These capabilities serve different roles. Scanning identifies vulnerabilities, while SBOM and component data help establish what software exists inside an image and support more accurate vulnerability correlation.
How Do Base Images Affect Vulnerability Detection?
Base Images can introduce vulnerable packages into every image built from them. Detecting vulnerabilities in the base image helps teams identify inherited components that may affect multiple derived images.
Updating the base image can address vulnerabilities inherited from an older version. Teams should rebuild and rescan derived images to confirm which findings remain.
Detecting vulnerabilities is only useful when teams can identify the affected components and act on the findings. CleanStart provides continuous visibility into container images, dependencies, SBOMs, and vulnerability exposure, helping teams trace risk to specific components and make informed remediation decisions.
How Does Vulnerability Detection Support Image Security and the Software Supply Chain?
Vulnerability detection supports image security and software supply chain security by identifying known weaknesses in the components that enter and move through container environments.
Image Security protects container images throughout their lifecycle, while Vulnerability Detection identifies known weaknesses within those images. The two capabilities work together but serve different purposes.
The relationship includes:
- Hardened Container Images: Reduce unnecessary software and configurations that can introduce security weaknesses. Vulnerability detection helps identify known vulnerabilities that remain after hardening.
- Base image security: Vulnerabilities in base-image components can propagate into derived images. Detecting them helps teams identify affected images.
- Third-party components: Vulnerability detection identifies known weaknesses in open-source packages, libraries, and dependencies used by container images.
- Software Supply Chain Security: Vulnerability detection helps identify vulnerable components before artifacts move through development and deployment workflows.
- DevSecOps: Teams can integrate vulnerability checks into CI/CD pipelines to identify known vulnerabilities before affected images progress through the delivery process.
Vulnerability detection provides visibility into known weaknesses. It does not replace secure build practices, software supply chain controls, or runtime protection.
How Does Vulnerability Detection Differ From Runtime Security?
Vulnerability detection identifies known weaknesses in container images and their software components. Runtime security monitors running workloads for abnormal behaviour and active threats.
The two capabilities address different stages and types of risk:
Factor | Vulnerability Detection | Runtime Security |
Primary focus | Known vulnerabilities in container images and software components | Threats and abnormal behavior in running workloads |
When it acts | During build, before deployment, or when scanning existing images | During workload execution |
What it examines | Packages, libraries, dependencies, and vulnerability data | Runtime activity, system calls, network activity, and other behavioural signals |
Main goal | Identify known weaknesses for further action | Detect and respond to active or suspicious behaviour |
Example finding | A package contains a known CVE | A running container executes suspicious code or an unexpected binary |
Relationship | Helps reduce known software risk | Helps detect threats that emerge during execution |
How Does Vulnerability Detection Support Container Security Compliance?
Vulnerability detection supports container security compliance by providing evidence that organisations monitor known vulnerabilities and enforce defined security requirements. Teams can use scan results, vulnerability records, and policy evaluations to demonstrate that container images meet their security standards.
The following practices connect detection with compliance:
- Evaluate security policies: Use vulnerability thresholds and image-security rules to determine whether an image meets defined requirements before deployment.
- Maintain audit evidence: Retain vulnerability findings, scan results, SBOMs, and related security records that support compliance assessments.
- Enforce supply-chain requirements: Check images for requirements such as provenance, SBOM availability, and approved security configurations.
- Support framework requirements: Map container-security practices to the requirements of the applicable compliance framework rather than treating vulnerability detection as compliance by itself.
Container security compliance connects vulnerability detection with the policies, controls, and evidence organizations use to demonstrate that their container environments meet applicable security requirements.
How Does CleanStart Support Vulnerability Detection?
CleanStart helps teams identify vulnerabilities by showing what exists inside container images and where affected components are located. It maps known vulnerabilities to specific packages and dependencies, giving teams the visibility needed to investigate findings.
This is how CleanStart supports vulnerability detection:
- Container Image Visibility: CleanStart discovers container images across registries and environments and provides visibility into their packages, layers, and dependencies.
- Vulnerability Mapping: CleanStart links known vulnerabilities to specific packages and dependencies, helping teams identify affected components within images.
- SBOM-Based Dependency Insight: CleanStart generates SPDX 3.0 SBOMs that inventory packages, libraries, dependencies, versions, and relationships within container images. The SBOM data supports vulnerability correlation and component-level analysis.
- Inherited Risk Visibility: CleanStart identifies inherited risk associated with base images and dependencies, helping teams understand vulnerabilities that enter images through their underlying software components.
Book a demo with us to see how CleanStart helps your team identify vulnerabilities and understand the components that introduce risk.
