Twistlock Blog
twistlock.com · Company blog · on HN since 2015
Company blog of Twistlock, a container security vendor, with research on Docker, Kubernetes and rkt vulnerabilities and escapes.
What HN saysHN commenters link it for container-escape research and mention Twistlock's product for CVE scanning, compliance and Kubernetes security.
23HN people shared it
8linked it in comments
38stories submitted
1.0Kstory points
7 years agolast shared
2015people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Twistlock – Container Security and Docker Security Platform3 people · 2 points · first shared 2015 · discussion on HN
- 2Escaping Docker container using waitid() – CVE-2017-51232 people · 446 points · first shared 2017 · 121 comments on HN
- 3Breaking Out of Docker via RunC2 people · 116 points · first shared 2019 · 20 comments on HN
- 4Non-root containers, Kubernetes CVE-2019-11245 and why you should care2 people · 11 points · first shared 2019 · 1 comments on HN
- 5Demystifying Kubernetes CVE-2018-1002105 (and a dead simple exploit)2 people · 8 points · first shared 2018 · discussion on HN
- 6Breaking Out of Rkt Containers – 3 New Unpatched CVEs2 people · 7 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 7Tracking Down Exposed Kubernetes Instances in the Wild2 people · 5 points · first shared 2018 · discussion on HN
- 8Dear Developers, Beware of DNS Rebinding: DNS Rebinding and CSRF with Etcd2 people · 5 points · first shared 2018 · 3 comments on HN
- 9Kubernetes Secrets Encryption2 people · 1 points · first shared 2017 · discussion on HN
- 10Escaping docker container using waitid cve 2017 51232 people · first shared 2018
- 11Show HN: Hiding code from Git diff1 people · 167 points · first shared 2017 · 72 comments on HN
- 12Exploiting Alpine Linux1 people · 91 points · first shared 2017 · 22 comments on HN
- 13CVE-2017-16544: A Busybox autocompletion vulnerability1 people · 49 points · first shared 2017 · 14 comments on HN
- 14Exploitable buffer overflows found in apk (Alpine Linux's package manager)1 people · 19 points · first shared 2017 · discussion on HN
- 15Deep dive on the most severe Kubernetes vulnerabilities – CVE-2017-1002101/21 people · 15 points · first shared 2018 · 2 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
dimastopel · 2016-10-24
Not sure if you are looking for a commercial solution, but we (Twistlock [1]) develop a security suite for enterprises working with Docker and / or Kubernetes. In fact, we are officially recommended by Google for working with GKE which is very much based on Kubernetes [2]. I'd be glad to elaborate if relevant.
[1] https://www.twistlock.com/
[2] https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2015/11/enhancements-to-Container…
auslander · 2018-07-05
Excellent point :) So. First of all, you'd not have to worry about following, if you don't use containers.
If your app, running in Docker container, is compromised, like PHP webshell, it might try to escape the container. What capabilities you granted for your containers? CAP_SYS_ADMIN, CAP_NET_ADMIN or you have no idea? This is just one example of escaping https://www.twistlock.com/2017/12/27/escaping-docker-container-using-w… and lets talk about namespaces, like user namespace. Is root inside container is a root user on host system?
Does it feels like production ready system?
choosegoose · 2018-11-14
We use Twistlock (https://www.twistlock.com/) as it does the CVE scanning but you can setup rules for compliance, binary monitoring and a whole plethora of other security/auditing type things. It also has a jenkins plugin so you can fail builds if a certain threshold of CVEs/compliance failures are introduced by developers (the only way to actually get the team to care about security).
Our security folks haven't really decided what to do with containers although some people are just using RHEL7 base images since its "enterprise-y". Our group personally uses alpine base images. If we have something like a java service hosted by Tomcat, we build alpine then build tomcat and then build our "service" container. While most people are fine pulling from Dockerhub, we do work in closed-loop environments and have a private docker registry where we host our "chain" of docker images which are versioned and updated regularly.
yumyumyumyum · 2017-10-20
From a production Swarm operator without much experience with k8s:
When you create a new Swarm cluster with `docker swarm init`, Swarmkit creates PKI that is used for everything onward: gRPC cluster state communication, encrypted overlay networks, secrets, and so on. Keys are automatically rolled every 12 hours by default. This is done automatically and transparently to the operator, without any effort on their part. Adding workers or managers after that is as done with `docker swarm join --token <token>` on the new node, that's all.
I believe operation ease for starting a cluster and maintaining it for k8s is something that's going to get a lot easier soon from Moby and k8s joining forces.
Secrets. Swarm got encrypted secrets in January, and you create one with `docker secret create <secret-name> <file/stdin>` or the API. It looks like k8s got it as an alpha feature at the end of June and it doesn't look easy: https://www.twistlock.com/2017/08/02/kubernetes-secrets-encryption/
They are making secrets functionality plug-able, to match the flexibiliy in networks, volumes, and logging.
As far as development power goes, 9k contributors and 9k pull requests in the last year is nothing to scoff at. That's also a misrepresentation because of the effort put forth for CNI and container standards that make a lot of the work interchangeable.
k8s has a lot of nice stuff and a great, evolving ecosystem, but I think you are being a bit harsh on Swarm. I think Moby (and derivatives)…
dredmorbius · 2019-12-04
Containers (and virtualisation) are helpful but. not bulletproof. If your threat model is already malicious code with ill intent, you probably want higher grades of privsep / sandboxing.
E.g.,
https://www.twistlock.com/labs-blog/escaping-docker-container-using-wa…
https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/46978
Full virtualisation does far better, though I believe there've been exploits there as well. Yes, from 2015:
https://threatpost.com/xen-patches-7-year-old-vm-escape-hypervisor-vul…
lojack · 2019-03-20
https://www.twistlock.com/labs-blog/breaking-docker-via-runc-explainin…
This is from a CVE that was released a little over a month ago.
craftoman · 2018-11-10
I know it's kinda old but think about how many exploits are out there in the jungle.
https://www.twistlock.com/labs-blog/escaping-docker-container-using-wa…
danShumway · 2018-06-14
Not sure if this is what grandparent is referring to, but DNS rebinding[0] is what springs to mind.
It's simultaneously kind of smart and also really stupid. Basically, you give a valid 3rd-party domain multiple IPs, one of them normal and one of them resolving to a local IP. Then you cut off the normal one and the browser just allows you to make calls to whatever local interface you want.
There was a good defcon video about this a while back[1]. It's a much bigger problem than most people realize. This is why it's good practice to have at least some security around devices even if they're only connected to your LAN.
[0]: https://www.twistlock.com/2018/02/28/dear-developers-beware-dns-rebind…
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stnJiPBIM6o