Container Firewalls: What Are the Options?

Container firewalls are security tools that protect containerized applications and the host environment they run on from malicious traffic and threats. 

Containers are a lightweight and portable way to package and deploy applications, and they have become increasingly popular in recent years as a way to deploy applications in cloud and hybrid environments. However, as with any computing environment, containers can be vulnerable to security threats such as network attacks, malware and unauthorized access.

Container firewalls are a type of network firewall designed to address these security risks by inspecting and controlling network traffic to and from containers. They can be configured to allow only authorized traffic to pass through while blocking or alerting on unauthorized or malicious traffic. This helps to prevent attackers from gaining access to the container or host environment and helps to ensure that the containerized application is not disrupted or compromised.

Container firewalls are important for several reasons:

  • Security: Container firewalls help to protect against malicious traffic and threats, ensuring that containerized applications and host environments are secure.
  • Compliance: Container firewalls can help organizations meet regulatory and compliance requirements by providing an additional layer of security for containerized applications.
  • Visibility: Container firewalls provide visibility into network traffic to and from containers, helping organizations to understand what is happening within their containerized environments.
  • Efficiency: Container firewalls can help organizations optimize the performance of their containerized environments by only allowing necessary traffic to pass through.

How Can You Implement Container Firewalls?

There are several ways to implement container firewalls, depending on the specific needs and resources of an organization. Some common options include:

Manual implementation 

One option is to manually implement a container firewall by configuring network security rules and policies directly on the host environment or within the container itself. This can be done using tools such as iptables, which is a Linux kernel firewall that allows administrators to configure rules for incoming and outgoing network traffic. While this approach can be effective, it can be time-consuming and may require a high level of expertise in network security.

Commercial solutions

Another option is to use a commercial container firewall solution, which is a pre-packaged software or hardware product that is specifically designed to provide security for containerized environments

These solutions typically come with a user-friendly interface and a range of features and capabilities, such as the ability to inspect and control network traffic, detect and prevent attacks, and provide visibility and reporting. Commercial solutions can be more expensive than manual implementation, but they may be a good option for organizations that do not have the resources or expertise to implement a container firewall manually.

Ultimately, the choice between manual implementation and a commercial solution will depend on the specific needs and resources of an organization. Factors to consider may include the size and complexity of the containerized environment, other cloud security solutions, the level of expertise and resources available, and the budget constraints of the organization.

Container Firewalls: What Are the Options?

Calico Cloud

Calico Cloud provides proactive build, deployment, and runtime security to detect, prevent, and mitigate security vulnerabilities in container-based applications. It supports containerized applications running in multi-cloud and hybrid environments.

Key features include:

  • Host-based protection—detects the presence of malicious files in the environment, maintaining a threat intelligence database of known malicious files.
  • Network-based protection—uses an intrusion detection/protection system (IDS/IPS) with global threat feeds and SNORT rules to detect and block traffic from suspicious sources. 
  • Anomaly detection—analyzes network activity to identify any unusual or suspicious behavior detected in a Kubernetes cluster. Provides a workload-centric web application firewall (WAF) to protect against application layer attacks such as the OWASP Top 10.
  • Workload access control—provides fine-grained access control to prevent data exfiltration, by restricting communication from pods to C&C servers.
  • Identity-aware micro-segmentation—prevents lateral movement of threats through identity-aware micro-segmentation. This ensures that only authorized pods allow lateral communication.
  • Firewall integration—supports pod-level integration with existing network firewalls, extending firewall protection to containers and Kubernetes.

Palo Alto CN-Series

The CN-Series firewall, made by Palo Alto Networks, a next-generation firewall (NGFW) bsad on machine learning technology and built for Kubernetes environments. The firewall provides all the functionality of the PA-Series hardware NGFW in a form compatible with container environments. Like other Palo Alto firewalls, it lets customers deliver cloud-based security services via the CN-Series platform.

Key features of the CN-Series firewall include:

  • Preventing exfiltration—blocks suspicious activity and prevents data exfiltration with outbound traffic content inspection, including encrypted SSL traffic and traffic from containerized applications. The firewall prevents containers from accidentally accessing questionable websites and command and control (C&C) servers.
  • Dynamic scalability—scales automatically together with containerized workloads. 
  • Enforcing zero trust with threat prevention—discovers layer 7 visibility and control to secure east-west traffic between pods in different trust zones (e.g. two namespaces) or between pods and other workload types.
  • Keep the latest threats from breaching your network -defend against container attacks and vulnerability-based malware delivery with custom signatures based on content rather than hashes.

Juniper Networks cSRX Container Firewall

cSRX is a containerized version of the Juniper Networks SRX Series Services Gateways. It provides visibility into the network, enabling organizations to respond more quickly to new threats. Each individual containerized application or microservice can have its own NGFW for content security, or an entire chain of network security services, depending on the needs.

cSRX supports flexible, scalable deployment options that cover use cases like application protection, microsegmentation, edge gateways for secure IoT deployments, and Kubernetes integration. 

Key features include:

  • Full-featured firewall—provides comprehensive NGFW functionality in a small footprint suitable for containerized deployment.
  • Fast startup—containers boot up fast, and cSRX can be instantiated and secured to workloads in less than a minute once container resources are available.
  • Securing layers 4-7—provides security from network layer 4 (the transport layer) through to layer 7 (the application layer), providing micro-segmentation, encryption, and security for cloud native applications.

Aqua Security

Aqua provides end-to-end security for containerized applications, making it possible to run production container workloads with full visibility and control. Aqua secures containerized containerized applications running on Linux (docker or containerd runtime) or Windows Containers, with strong image guarantees, container immutability, least privilege enforcement, and container firewall.

Aqua platform features include:

  • Integrating security controls into the DevOps pipeline—scans a container host’s continuous integration (CI) tooling, registries, and images to find and fix issues early, including hard-coded secrets, misconfigured images, and malware.
  • Runtime protection for containerized applications—enforces deployment of trusted images, container immutability, automatically learns and enforces least-privilege behavior, and detects and prevents suspicious activity and attacks.
  • Policy-based security—enables management of multi-tenant, multi-cloud deployments from development to production with automated, customizable security policies.

Conclusion

In conclusion, container firewalls are a necessary security measure for protecting containerized applications and infrastructure. There are various options available, including Calico, Aqua, cSRX and Palo Alto. Each solution has its own features, and the best choice will depend on the specific needs and constraints of the organization. It is important to carefully consider the available options and choose a container firewall that can effectively secure the containerized environment.

Gilad David Mayaan

Gilad David Maayan is a technology writer who has worked with over 150 technology companies including SAP, Samsung NEXT, NetApp and Imperva, producing technical and thought leadership content that elucidates technical solutions for developers and IT leadership.

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