Security vendor Thales has announced updates to its Vormetric Data Security Platform aimed at securing Docker containers. The updates raise the level of security around containers substantially.
Derek Tumulak, Vice President of Product Management for Thales e-Security said: “Thales continues to innovate by providing advanced data security solutions and services that delivers trust wherever information is created, shared, or stored. No other organization offers the depth and breadth of integrated data security solutions, or enables enterprises to confidently accelerate their organization’s digital transformation, like Thales.”
Are Docker containers secure?
Interest in the use of containers has grown substantially during 2016. Enterprises are now beginning to use containers as a Virtual Machine (VM) replacement technology. This has led to a greater emphasis on the way containers are used. A number of different vendors have released security solutions aimed at the use of Docker containers in particular. There has also been a lot of best practice advice circulating to help companies protect themselves.
In May, Docker announced the Docker Security Scanning solution. This was followed in August by Docker adding digital signature to containers along with two other security features. All of this has significantly increased the security around containers. Does this makes them secure? The tools to deploy security around Docker containers are certainly available. Whether organisations use them properly, especially the best practice advice, is down to individual companies.
What has Thales added?
According to the press release there are four things that Thales is delivering: All are contained within the Vormetric Data Security Platform. They are:
General availability of Vormetric Transparent Encryption Live Data Transformation Extension: Previously available as a pilot this is now a release feature. It is aimed at allowing organisations to deploy encryption with minimal downtime.
Vormetric Transparent Encryption Docker Extension: This is an extension to the existing Vormetric tools. It is extending them to cover Docker containers and users. For organisation that work in high compliance industries it allows them to align their container security with their compliance obligations.
FIPS 140-2 level 3 certified remote data security management and policy control for Vormetric Data Security Manager V6100 appliance: This delivers remote management of the Thales Vormetric data security appliances.
Batch Data Transformation: Eases initial encryption or tokenization of sensitive database columns in environments that are protected with Vormetric Application Encryption or Vormetric Tokenization. Also supports Static Data Masking requirements.
Thales are focusing on containers that contain customer data rather than applications. This is something that is often overlooked when it comes to container management. Much of the focus in the last year has been around securing the applications and trusting the containers. Data has become a secondary concern as security teams focus on data being stored outside the container.
Conclusion
For companies that want to move everything into the cloud, data only containers are attractive. They allow data to be replicated and moved easily using the container management tools. It also means that data can be deployed alongside an application to a new cloud location. This removes the risk of latency when adding in support for new cloud deployments.
It will be interesting to see how many new customers Thales can sign to the Vormetric Data Security Platform with this announcement.
