To minimize the attack surface of the container for an internet-facing application running on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), the best practice is to build small containers using small base images. This approach helps in the following ways:
Reduce Vulnerabilities: Smaller base images contain fewer packages and dependencies, which minimizes the potential vulnerabilities that an attacker could exploit.
Improved Security: Using minimal base images such as distroless or Alpine Linux ensures that only the necessary components are included, reducing the attack surface significantly.
Easier Maintenance: Small containers are easier to maintain and update, ensuring that security patches can be applied quickly without dealing with unnecessary components.
Steps to Implement:
Choose a Minimal Base Image:
Use base images like gcr.io/distroless/base or alpine.
FROM gcr.io/distroless/base COPY myapp /myapp CMD ["/myapp"]
Optimize Container Image:
Remove unnecessary tools and libraries.
Use multi-stage builds to keep the final image small.
Regularly Update Base Images:
Keep the base images up-to-date with the latest security patches.
Distroless Images
Best Practices for Building Containers
