Container Security and Best Practices on AWS

Running containers in production requires a security-first mindset at every layer — from the images you build, through the runtime environment, to the network and access controls around your workloads. This lesson covers comprehensive security practices and operational best practices for running containers on AWS.

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The Container Security Layers

Container security is not a single concern — it spans multiple layers:

+--------------------------------------------------+
|               Application Code                    |
|--------------------------------------------------|
|               Container Image                     |
|--------------------------------------------------|
|               Container Runtime                   |
|--------------------------------------------------|
|               Host / Compute                      |
|--------------------------------------------------|
|               Network                             |
|--------------------------------------------------|
|               Access Control (IAM)                |
|--------------------------------------------------|
|               Data Protection                     |
+--------------------------------------------------+

Let's address each layer.

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1. Image Security

Use Minimal Base Images

The fewer packages in your base image, the smaller the attack surface:

Base Image	Size	Packages
ubuntu:22.04	~77 MB	Hundreds of packages
alpine:3.19	~7 MB	Minimal BusyBox utilities
gcr.io/distroless/static	~2 MB	No shell, no package manager

Recommendation: Use alpine or distroless base images for production workloads.

Multi-Stage Builds

Keep build tools out of your production image: