CI/CD Image Security Scan Overview

The CI/CD image security scan function of HSS can be integrated into the CI/CD build pipeline of the Jenkins Pipeline project. It can implement security scan in the image build phase; identify system vulnerabilities, application vulnerabilities, unsafe settings, malicious files, sensitive files, and software compliance issues in images; and shift security left to the DevOps phase, helping you eliminate security risks as early as possible and preventing unsafe images from being deployed in the production environment.

What Is CI/CD?

CI/CD is short for continuous integration and continuous delivery/deployment.

Continuous Integration (CI) automatically and continuously integrates code into shared source code.
CD consists of continuous delivery and continuous deployment. After continuous integration, continuous delivery verifies the code through automated building and testing to ensure that container images can be delivered at any time. Continuous deployment automatically updates and releases the images to the production environment.

What Is Jenkins Pipeline?

Jenkins is an open source CI tool that provides user-friendly GUIs. It originates from Hudson and is used to automate all sorts of tasks related to building, testing, and delivering or deploying software.

Jenkins is written in Java and can run in popular servlet containers such as Tomcat, or run independently. It is usually used together with the version control tools (or SCM tools) and build tools. Jenkins supports project building in diverse languages and is fully compatible with multiple third-party build tools, such as Maven, Ant, and Gradle. Jenkins is seamlessly integrated with common versioning tools, such as SVN and GIT, and can directly connect to source code hosting websites, such as GitHub.

Pipeline is a working mode that implements CI/CD in Jenkins.

CI/CD Image Security Scan Principles

To use the CI/CD image security scan function of HSS, you do not need to synchronize your image assets to HSS. You simply need to add two commands to the Jenkins pipeline (the command for pulling the image of the HSS image security scan tool and the command for starting the tool). When you use Jenkins Pipeline to build a project, an image security scan task is triggered to scan for image security risks in the project and display the scan results on the HSS console. You can handle security risks in images in a timely manner based on the scan results.

Figure 1 shows the image security scan phase in the Jenkins pipeline.

Figure 1 CI/CD image security scan
Click to enlarge

CI/CD Image Security Scan Items

Table 1 describes the CI/CD image security scan items checked by HSS.

**Table 1** Image scan items
Scan Item	Description
Vulnerabilities	System and application vulnerabilities in images. The following OSs can be scanned: EulerOS 2.2, 2.3, 2.5, 2.8, 2.9, 2.10, 2.11, 2.12 (64-bit) CentOS 7.4, 7.5, 7.6, 7.7, 7.8, 7.9, 8, 8.1, 8.2 (64-bit) Ubuntu 16.04, 18.04, 20.04, 22.04, 24.04 (64-bit) Debian 9, 10, 11, 12 (64-bit) Kylin V10, V10 SP1, V10 SP2, and V10 SP3 (64-bit) HCE 1.1 and 2.0 (64-bit) SLES 12 SP5, 15 SP1, and 15 SP2 (64-bit) UnionTech OS V20 server E, V20 server D, 1050u2e, 1050e, 1060e, 1070e (64-bit) Rocky Linux 8.4, 8.5, 8.6, 8.10, 9.0, 9.1, 9.2, 9.4, 9.5 (64-bit) openEuler 20.03 LTS, 20.03 LTS SP1, 20.03 LTS SP2, 20.03 LTS SP3, 20.03 LTS SP4 openEuler 22.03 LTS, 22.03 LTS SP1, 22.03 LTS SP2, 22.03 LTS SP3, 22.03 LTS SP4 openEuler 24.03 LTS CTyunOS 3-23.01 (64-bit) AlmaLinux 8.4 (64-bit) The following applications and middleware can be scanned: log4j, slf4j, Tomcat, apache, jetty, mysql, druid, commons, spring, shiro, struts, struts2, websocket, json, fastjson, xstream, maven, junit, activemq, libintl, ca-certificates-java, httpclient, httpcore, java, javac2, javaee, Apache2, adaptive_server_enterprise, DB2, http_server, Memcached, nginx, PostgreSQL, bootstrap, zookeeper, plexus-utils, and core.
Malicious Files	Malicious files in images.
Software Information	Software information in an image.
File Information	File information in an image.
Baseline Check	Unsafe configuration: Images configurations of CentOS 7, Debian 10, EulerOS, and Ubuntu16 SSH configurations Weak passwords of Linux (SSH) accounts Password complexity: insecure password complexity policies in Linux
Sensitive Information	Files that contain sensitive information in images. The paths that are not checked by default are as follows: /usr/* /lib/* /lib32/* /bin/* /sbin/* /var/lib/* /var/log/* AnyPath/node_modules/AnyPath/AnyName.md AnyPath/node_modules/AnyPath/test/AnyPath /service/iam/examples_test.go AnyPath/grafana/public/build/AnyName.js NOTE: AnyPath: indicates that the current path is a customized value and can be any path in the system. AnyName: indicates that the file name in the current path is a customized value, which can be any name ended with .md or .js in the system. On the View Report* > Sensitive Information tab, click Configure Sensitive File Path to set the Linux paths of the file that do not need to be checked. A maximum of 20 paths can be added. No checks are performed in the following scenarios: The file size is greater than 20 MB. The file type is binary, common process, or auto generation.
Software Compliance	Whether software and patch packages contain components that may cause security, compliance, or privacy issues. Examples: Third-party network sniffing and debugging tools: tcpdump, gdb, strace, readelf, and Nmap Development or compilation tools: Dev-cpp, gcc, and mirror
Base Images	Check the basic image information used by the service image, including the basic image name, version, and image layer path. A base image is the starting point for building other images. It is a minimal image that contains core OS files, runtimes, or basic tools. All service images are built by adding new layers to the base image. Common base images include Ubuntu, Alpine Linux, CentOS, Debian, and Fedora.

Scenario

Scanning a local image
After an image is built, a security scan is performed on it. If the image has security risks, the pipeline can be blocked, so that it will not be pushed to the production image repository.
Scanning a remote image repository
A remote image repository is a remote test repository pushed after an image is built. A security scan is performed on the image in the remote test repository. If no risks are found, the image can be pushed to the production image repository. If risks are found, the pipeline can be blocked.

Constraints

To scan repository images, enable pay-per-use container image scans. This feature does not depend on any HSS edition. For details, see Enabling Pay-per-use Container Image Scan.
The CI/CD image scan function applies only to the Jenkins Pipeline mode.
Jenkins configuration restrictions are as follows:
- Hardware restrictions:
  - Jenkins compilation and building server: Linux server, x86 or Arm 64-bit
  - CPU: 1 or more cores
  - Memory: 2 GB or more
  - Disk space: 60 GB or higher
- Technical restrictions:
  - Jenkins version: Jenkins 2.x
  - JDK version: JDK 17 or later
  - Docker version: Docker 18.09 or later
To perform a remote image scan, the image repository must support interaction through Docker Registry HTTP API v2.

CI/CD Image Security Scan Process

Figure 2 Usage process
Click to enlarge

**Table 2** Usage process
Operation	Description
Accessing CI/CD	Generate an image security scan command for Pipeline based on image information and add the command to the Jenkins pipeline.
Enabling Pay-per-use Container Image Scan	Enable pay-per-use scan for CI/CD images.
Viewing and Handling CI/CD Image Scan Results	View the CI/CD image security scan results. Check and eliminate security risks to prevent insecure images from entering the production environment.