New2026 CISO Guide to Software TrustThe 2026 CISO Guide to Software Trust87% of public container images ship with high or critical CVEs.Get the guide

Containing Vulnerabilities in your Containers

Most container security work happens after the image exists: detect, prioritize, patch and repeat, by which point the dependencies are included and the attack surface is set. This ebook walks through seven common container security risks, from lack of image visibility and runtime risks to hardcoded credentials and manual compliance, and where scanning, golden images and secrets management fall short. It argues that security is a composition problem and shows how CleanStart controls what goes into each image, so containers stay minimal, predictable and easier to secure.

Executive brief

Container security is usually treated as a detection problem, so most teams scan images, monitor runtime, and respond to CVEs after the container already exists. By that point the dependencies are chosen, the attack surface is defined, and the risk is shipped. The eBook walks through seven common failure modes that share this pattern: poor image visibility despite scanning, letting vulnerabilities live until production, over-reliance on runtime monitoring that detects instead of prevents, base-image sprawl that replicates the same CVEs across every derived container, hardcoded secrets baked into image layers, security tooling that adds enough friction for developers to route around it, and manual compliance evidence assembled after the fact.