Docker containers are increasingly hosted in production environments to be publicly discovered and used by many. Especially, with the faster adoption of cloud technologies, the IT environments of worldwide organizations and institutions are getting methodically optimized and transformed to deftly and decisively host a wider variety of VMs and containers. There are new improvements and enablements, such as Flocker and Clocker, in order to speed up the process of taking containers to cloud environments (private, public, hybrid, and community). There are recommendations that have to be followed while deploying containers. As we all know, containers remarkably reduce the overhead by allowing developers and system administrators to seamlessly deploy containers for applications and services required for business operations. However, because Docker leverages the same kernel as the host system to reduce the need for resources, containers can be exposed to significant security risks if not adequately configured. There are a few carefully annotated guidelines to be strictly followed by both developers and system administrators while deploying containers. For example, https://github.com/GDSSecurity/Docker-Secure-Deployment-Guidelines elaborates in a tabular form with all the right details.

An indisputable truth is that the software flaws in distributed and complex applications open the way for intelligent attackers and hackers to break into systems that host critical, confidential, and customer data. Therefore, security solutions are being insisted and ingrained across all the layers in the IT stack, and hence, there arise many types of security vulnerabilities at different levels and layers. For example, the perimeter security that solves only part of the problem because the changing requirements are mandated for allowing network access to employees, customers, and partners. Similarly, there are firewalls, intrusion detection and prevention systems, Application Delivery Controllers (ADCs), access controls, multifactor authentication and authorization, patching, and so on. Then, for securing data while in transit, persistence, and being used by applications, there are encryption, steganography, and hybrid security models. All these are reactive and realistic mechanisms, but the increasing tendency is all about virtual businesses insisting on proactive and preemptive security methods. As IT is tending and trending toward the much anticipated virtual IT, the security issues and implications are being given extra importance by security experts.