Build-time image scanning
Trivy, Grype or Snyk runs on every image build, comparing OS packages and language dependencies against vulnerability feeds and reporting by severity.
Security & Compliance
Container & Image Scanning
Stop vulnerable container images at the registry, before a cluster can pull them.
The work
What this actually does
Container images carry everything you did not write: base layers, package managers, language runtimes and transitive dependencies. We scan at build time, fail the build on findings your policy calls blocking, and generate a software bill of materials so you can answer questions about an image months after it shipped.
The registry matters as much as the scanner. We wire admission control so an image that fails policy never becomes pullable by production nodes, and we sign and attest images so a deployment can prove which pipeline built it from which commit. Builds stay reproducible, so a given commit, base and dependency set always produces the same digest.
If any of these sound familiar
- Every image is rebuilt from latest, so the base changes unannounced
- Critical CVEs are discovered weeks after the image reached production
- Nobody can list the packages inside an image running in production
- Scanning exists but nothing stops a developer pushing anyway
Scope
What's included
Every engagement on this page covers the following, sized to your setup rather than delivered as a fixed package. If something here is not relevant to you, it comes off the scope and off the price.
SBOM generation
A signed software bill of materials in CycloneDX or SPDX attached to each build, so an advisory next month can be answered with a query rather than a rebuild.
Image signing and provenance
Cosign signatures and build provenance tied to the commit and pipeline, verified at deploy time so an unsigned image cannot be scheduled at all.
Registry admission control
Cluster policies that check signature, scan result and registry before a pod starts, turning your container standard into something the platform enforces.
Base image maintenance
Minimal base images with a rebuild cadence, so you pick up patched OS layers on a schedule instead of discovering them through an incident.
Exception handling
A documented path for accepting a risk with an owner, an expiry date and a ticket, so exceptions are visible rather than permanent quiet suppressions.
What changes
What teams typically see
100%Images with a signed SBOM
0Unsigned images admitted
2 minAdded build time per image
Handover
What you keep
Everything produced during the engagement is yours: the repositories, the accounts, the documentation. There is no proprietary layer and nothing to unlicense if you take the work in-house.
- Scanning stages configured in the image build pipeline
- Signed SBOMs produced and stored for every release
- Admission policies that reject unsigned or failing images
- Base image catalogue with a documented rebuild cadence
- Exception register with owners and expiry dates
Tooling
Tools we use here
A starting point, not a requirement. We work in whatever you already run wherever it does the job.
Docker
Kubernetes
Trivy
Snyk
GitHub
GitLab
Helm
OpenShift
How it runs
From first call to handover
The same four steps on every engagement. You see each one before it starts and can stop at any of them.
- 01
Inventory images and registries
We map where images are built, which registries hold them and who can push, because admission control is only as strong as the paths into the registry.
- 02
Agree blocking thresholds
Together we decide which severities stop a build, which raise a ticket and which are recorded only, since a threshold nobody agrees with gets disabled in a week.
- 03
Wire scanning and signing
Build stages, signing keys and SBOM publishing are implemented as reviewed pull requests, starting with your noisiest image so the first week produces real data.
- 04
Enforce at the cluster
Admission policies go into audit mode first so you can see what would have been blocked, then into enforce mode once the exceptions are cleared.
Questions
Asked before we start
Will blocking images break our deployments?
It will catch deployments that would have gone out anyway, which is the point, but we reduce the shock by running admission policies in audit mode first and clearing exceptions before enforcement. Teams usually start with critical severities only.
Doesn't scanning the base image just move the problem?
Partly, yes. Updating a base image exposes new package versions and occasionally new advisories, so the rebuild itself has to be routine. That is why the cadence and the exception process matter more than any single scan result.
Do we have to sign every image?
For images that reach a shared or production registry, we would say yes, because signature verification is what makes admission control meaningful. Internal scratch images during development can stay unsigned if they cannot be pulled by a cluster.
How does this differ from a general security pipeline?
A general pipeline covers source code, secrets and runtime behaviour. This work goes deep on the container layer: base images, package inventories, signatures and the registry gate, which is where a lot of production risk actually sits.
Security & Compliance
Often needed alongside this
Security & Compliance
DevSecOps & Compliance
Security checks wired into the pipeline, so vulnerabilities are caught in review instead of in production.
- SAST, DAST, dependency and container scanning
- Secrets management with Vault, KMS and SOPS
- Policy as code and audit-ready evidence trails
Security & Compliance
Vulnerability & Patch Management
A patch cadence you can actually keep, driven by real exposure data rather than raw CVE counts.
- Automated OS, runtime and dependency patching
- Risk-based prioritisation by exploitability
- Rolling patching with zero-downtime drains
Platform & Containers
Kubernetes & Containers
Production-grade clusters with sane defaults, safe rollouts and an operator experience your team will actually enjoy.
- EKS, AKS, GKE and self-managed clusters
- Helm, Kustomize and GitOps-driven deployments
- Node autoscaling, resource tuning and cost control
Worth a conversation about Container & Image Scanning?
Bring the specific problem. We will tell you honestly whether this is the service that fixes it, and what it would take.