Containerization (container software)

What is containerization

Containerization is a "lightweight" form of virtualization at the operating system level that allows you to run an application and system libraries in an isolated area, a "container," each of which contains all the components necessary to launch the application, does not depend on the architecture of the server system and interacts with the OS using standard interfaces. In this, software containers are similar to transport containers - it doesn't matter what is "inside" the container, the main thing is that it has standard interfaces (in the real world - one of the standard sizes)^[1]

What's the difference between containers and virtual machines

Containers are "lighter" and compact than traditional virtual machines, they start very quickly, use a common operating system. They can be created much faster than virtual machine instances. Each container is essentially a separate microservice, its update does not require synchronization with other containers, and encapsulation in the container of everything necessary to launch the application facilitates portability from one environment to another.

Container (global market)

The size of the global market for commercial container software will grow in 2018-2023. on average by 30% annually, exceeding $1.6 billion by the end of the period - this forecast is given in the Technology Multi-Tenant Server Software Market Tracker of IHS Markit analysts. Red Hat leads with 44% market share.

Gartner analysts also forecast strong revenue growth from global container management software and services, though more modest in estimates. They believe that the revenue of the corresponding market segment in 2020-2024. will grow from $465.8 million to $944 million.

The most popular containerization tools from cloud service providers, they, according to IHS Markit, use container technologies on more than a third of their servers. For comparison, telecommunications companies and the corporate sector use container software for about 8% of multi-tenant servers (that is, allocated for the service of users from different organizations).

This lag in deployment is due to the complexity of managing the container orchestration facilities. Enterprises and telecommunications companies need more advanced control automation tools to widely implement containerization.

Principal Actors

The sphere of containerization is developing rapidly, but two "de facto" standards have already appeared in it. It is a Docker container format and Kubernetes container orchestration software.

Docker is open source software for automating deployment and application management in containerization environments. It divides the OS core into containers that operate as separate processes. Initially, this product was developed by the company of the same name, which also has its own Docker Swarm orchestration platform. However, the latter is increasingly inferior to Kubernetes.

Kubernetes is open source software for automating deployment, scaling of containerized applications. As a set of services, it implements a container cluster and its orchestration. It was originally created by Google.

According to a study by StackRox, which studied the dynamics of container adoption in 2018-2020. Kubernetes dominates the market: 86% of respondents use it to orchestrate containers.

Container hacking

2024: The world is experiencing a flurry of cyber attacks on container environments. How they are hacked

There is a flurry of cyber attacks on container environments in the world. TAdviser was informed about how they were hacked at Kaspersky Lab in June 2024.

According to a study in June 2024, in 34% of cases, errors in configurations are the reasons for successful cyber attacks on container environments. In second place in terms of prevalence are shortcomings in the process of ensuring security in runtime, that is, when the program is already launched (32%). On the third - late detection of malware in containers (32%).

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Kaspersky Lab conducted a survey on various aspects of cybersecurity, including the protection of container environments, among large organizations with a distributed network of divisions around the world. According to the study, the majority (85%) of geographically distributed companies in the world that use container development methods have encountered cyber incidents over the past 12 months. More than a third of respondents noted that this led to the leakage of confidential data (39%), financial losses (38%) and a decrease in customer confidence (34%).

It is noted that the vast majority of organizations (94%) have their own IT development teams, while 79% of them use container development methods.

The results of the study once again emphasize that cyber incidents related to container development and Kubernetes pose a serious threat to business and how important it is to implement reliable security measures to protect against data breaches and other cyber threats in hybrid cloud and container environments, says Timofey Titkov, head of cloud and network security product development at Kaspersky Lab. - Taking into account the growing level of digitalization, it is important for organizations to be proactive and implement comprehensive security solutions in order to continuously reduce risks and maintain customer confidence.

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