Container Image Vulnerability Scanning Agent
Scans container images across registries and CI pipelines for known vulnerabilities and blocks unsafe images from reaching production.
Container images frequently bundle outdated base layers and third-party packages with known CVEs, and without automated scanning these vulnerabilities slip silently into production through fast-moving CI/CD pipelines
Security teams struggle to keep pace with the volume of images built daily across microservices, and manual review of scan results creates bottlenecks that developers route around under deadline pressure
Registries accumulate thousands of stale images, many still deployed, with no clear view of which are actively running versus dormant
A single unpatched base image can propagate the same vulnerability across dozens of downstream services, and without policy-driven gating, critical flaws reach production before anyone notices
The agent scans container images at build time, on registry push, and on a recurring schedule for images already deployed, checking layers and installed packages against continuously updated CVE databases. It classifies findings by exploitability and production reachability, blocks builds that violate severity thresholds defined in policy, and generates targeted remediation guidance such as base image upgrades or package patches. The agent also tracks vulnerability trends across teams and images so security leadership can see which pipelines are improving and which need intervention.
Image Discovery and Scan Triggering
- Monitor CI/CD pipelines for new image builds
- Scan images on registry push and on a recurring cadence
- Catalog installed packages and base image layers
- Match findings against live CVE and advisory feeds
Severity and Exploitability Classification
- Score findings using CVSS and exploit-availability signals
- Assess whether vulnerable code paths are actually reachable
- Correlate findings with runtime deployment status
- Deduplicate CVEs shared across base image layers
Policy Gating and Remediation Guidance
- Block CI builds exceeding configured severity thresholds
- Suggest specific base image or package version upgrades
- Generate pull requests for straightforward dependency bumps
- Route exceptions through a documented waiver process
Trend Reporting and Registry Cleanup
- Track vulnerability density trends by team and repository
- Identify stale images eligible for registry deletion
- Publish weekly scorecards to engineering leadership
- Flag repeat-offender pipelines for process review