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| Stage | Secure |
| Maturity | Viable |
| Content Last Reviewed | 2023-09-18 |
| Content Last Updated | 2023-09-18 |
Thanks for visiting this category direction page on Container Scanning in GitLab. This page belongs to the Composition Analysis group of the Secure stage. The Product Manager is Sara Meadzinger.
This direction page is a work in progress, and everyone can contribute:
Container scanning analyzes the packages and libraries used in a container image. It identifies dependencies that have been directly included and it also analyzes those dependencies to get a list of their dependencies (also known as indirect or transitive dependencies). Once a full listing of all direct and transitive dependencies has been obtained, container scanning solutions analyze those dependencies to identify known vulnerabilities in those dependencies.
Container Scanning is often considered an element of Software Composition Analysis and Application Security Testing.
GitLab was named as a Challenger in the 2022 Magic Quadrant for Application Security Testing.
Additional details about our current features and capabilities can be viewed in our documentation.
We have three main themes in our container scanning strategy:
In GitLab 16.3 we addressed bugs related to the Container Scanning analyzer.
During 16.4 we are working to address a number of high value improvements, most of which are focused on making our Operational Container Scanning solution more up-to-date and functional to meet the needs of our users.
Also, during 16.4 we are working toward introducing continuous vulnerability scans. This new method of scanning will have significantly better performance and will allow users to have their vulnerability results updated continuously as new advisories are added to our advisory database. This work is a prerequisite for a large number of other features on our roadmap. Once this work is completed, users will no longer need to run regular scheduled scans to have their vulnerability results updated for container images that have been scanned as part of the CI pipeline for their default branch.
Over the next few months, we plan on finishing the work for continuous vulnerability scans so we can release the feature to users.
We currently do not have plans to add the following functionality during the next 12 months:
BIC (Best In Class) is an indicator of forecasted near-term market performance based on a combination of factors, including analyst views, market news, and feedback from the sales and product teams. It is critical that we understand where GitLab appears in the BIC landscape.
For this product area, these are the capabilities a best-in-class solution should provide:
This list represents some key capabilities of a comprehensive container scanning solution. Not all of these capabilities are currently supported by GitLab today.
Our prioritized roadmap can be viewed on our group direction page. Plans to move the category from Viable to Complete are tracked in GitLab.
Primary: Sasha (Software Developer) wants to know when adding a dependency to a container image if it has known vulnerabilities so alternate versions or dependencies can be considered.
Secondary: Amy (Application Security Engineer) and Isaac (Infrastructure Security Engineer) want to know what dependencies in their container images have known vulnerabilities, to be alerted if a new vulnerability is published for an existing component, and to know how behind current version the components are.
Other:
The GitLab Container Scanning features are all packaged as part of the GitLab Ultimate tier. This aligns with our pricing strategy as these features are relevant for executives who are concerned about keeping their organization secured from known vulnerabilities.
Container Scanning is frequently bundled together with Dependency Scanning and License Compliance to provide an overall Software Composition Analysis (SCA) solution within the Application Security Testing (AST) market. GitLab was recently named as a Challenger in the 2022 Magic Quadrant for Application Security Testing.