Caution
This article references CentOS, a Linux distribution that is End Of Service as of June 30, 2024. Please consider your use and planning accordingly. For more information, see the CentOS End Of Life guidance.
This article summarizes support information for Container capabilities in Microsoft Defender for Cloud.
Note
- Specific features are in preview. The Azure Preview Supplemental Terms include other legal terms that apply to Azure features that are in beta, preview, or otherwise not yet released into general availability.
- Only the versions of AKS, EKS and GKE supported by the cloud vendor are officially supported by Defender for Cloud.
The following are the features provided by Defender for Containers, for the supported cloud environments and container registries.
Vulnerability assessment (VA) features
Feature |
Description |
Supported resources |
Linux release state |
Windows release state |
Enablement method |
Plans |
Clouds availability |
Container registry VA |
VA for images in container registries |
ACR, ECR, GAR, GCR, Docker Hub, JFrog Artifactory |
GA |
GA |
Requires Registry access 1 or Connector creation for Docker Hub/Jfrog |
Defender for Containers or Defender CSPM |
Commercial clouds
National clouds: Azure Government, Azure operated by 21Vianet |
Runtime container VA - Registry scan based |
VA of containers running images from supported registries |
ACR, ECR, GAR, GCR, Docker Hub, JFrog Artifactory |
GA |
GA |
Requires Registry access 1 or Connector creation for Docker Hub/Jfrog and either K8S API access or Defender sensor 1 |
Defender for Containers or Defender CSPM |
Commercial clouds
National clouds: Azure Government, Azure operated by 21Vianet |
Runtime container VA |
Registry agnostic VA of container running images |
All |
Preview |
- |
Requires Agentless scanning for machines and either K8S API access or Defender sensor 1 |
Defender for Containers or Defender CSPM |
Commercial clouds
National clouds: Azure Government, Azure operated by 21Vianet |
1National clouds are automatically enabled and cannot be disabled.
Feature |
Description |
Supported resources |
Linux release state |
Windows release state |
Enablement method |
Plans |
Clouds availability |
Container registry VA |
Vulnerability assessments for images in container registries |
ACR, ECR, GAR, GCR, Docker Hub, JFrog Artifactory |
GA |
GA |
Requires Registry access |
Defender for Containers or Defender CSPM |
AWS |
Runtime container VA - Registry scan based |
VA of containers running images from supported registries |
ACR, ECR, GAR, GCR, Docker Hub, JFrog Artifactory |
GA |
- |
Requires Agentless scanning for machines and either K8S API access or Defender sensor |
Defender for Containers or Defender CSPM |
AWS |
Feature |
Description |
Supported resources |
Linux release state |
Windows release state |
Enablement method |
Plans |
Clouds availability |
Container registry VA |
Vulnerability assessments for images in container registries |
ACR, ECR, GAR, GCR, Docker Hub, JFrog Artifactory |
GA |
GA |
Requires Registry access |
Defender for Containers or Defender CSPM |
GCP |
Runtime container VA - Registry scan based |
VA of containers running images from supported registries |
ACR, ECR, GAR, GCR, Docker Hub, JFrog Artifactory |
GA |
- |
Requires Agentless scanning for machines and either K8S API access or Defender sensor |
Defender for Containers or Defender CSPM |
GCP |
Feature |
Description |
Supported resources |
Linux release state |
Windows release state |
Enablement method |
Plans |
Clouds availability |
Container registry VA |
Vulnerability assessments for images in container registries |
ACR, ECR, GAR, GCR, Docker Hub, JFrog Artifactory |
GA |
GA |
Requires Registry access |
Defender for Containers or Defender CSPM |
Arc Connected clusters |
Runtime container VA - Registry scan based |
VA of containers running images from supported registries |
ACR, ECR, GAR, GCR, Docker Hub, JFrog Artifactory |
GA |
- |
Requires Agentless scanning for machines and either K8S API access or Defender sensor |
Defender for Containers or Defender CSPM |
Arc Connected clusters |
Registries and images support for vulnerability assessment
Aspect |
Details |
Registries and images |
Supported * Container images in Docker V2 format * Images with Open Container Initiative (OCI) image format specification Unsupported * Super-minimalist images such as Docker scratch images is currently unsupported * Public repositories * Manifest lists
|
Operating systems |
Supported * Alpine Linux 3.12-3.21 * Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6-9 * CentOS 6-9 (CentOS is End Of Service as of June 30, 2024. For more information, see the CentOS End Of Life guidance.) * Oracle Linux 6-9 * Amazon Linux 1, 2 * openSUSE Leap, openSUSE Tumbleweed * SUSE Enterprise Linux 11-15 * Debian GNU/Linux 7-12 * Google Distroless (based on Debian GNU/Linux 7-12) * Ubuntu 12.04-22.04 * Fedora 31-37 * Azure Linux 1-2 * Windows server 2016, 2019, 2022 |
Language specific packages
|
Supported * Python * Node.js * PHP * Ruby * Rust * .NET * Java * Go |
Runtime protection features
Feature |
Description |
Supported resources |
Linux release state |
Windows release state |
Enablement method |
Plans |
Clouds availability |
Control plane detection |
Detection of suspicious activity for Kubernetes based on Kubernetes audit trail |
AKS |
GA |
GA |
Enabled with plan |
Defender for Containers or Defender CSPM |
Commercial clouds National clouds: Azure Government, Azure operated by 21Vianet |
Workload detection |
Monitors containerized workloads for threats and gives alerts to suspicious activities |
AKS |
GA |
- |
Requires Defender sensor |
Defender for Containers |
Commercial clouds and National clouds: Azure Government, Azure operated by 21Vianet |
Binary drift detection |
Detects binary of runtime container from container image |
AKS |
GA |
- |
Requires Defender sensor |
Defender for Containers |
Commercial clouds |
Advanced hunting in XDR |
View cluster incidents and alerts in Microsoft XDR |
AKS |
Preview - currently supports audit logs & process events |
Preview - currently supports audit logs |
Requires Defender sensor |
Defender for Containers |
Commercial clouds and National clouds: Azure Government, Azure operated by 21Vianet |
Response actions in XDR |
Provides automated and manual remediation in Microsoft XDR |
AKS |
Preview |
- |
Requires Defender sensor and K8S access API |
Defender for Containers |
Commercial clouds and National clouds: Azure Government, Azure operated by 21Vianet |
Malware detection |
Detection of malware |
AKS nodes |
GA |
GA |
Requires Agentless scanning for machines |
Defender for Containers or Defender for Servers Plan 2 |
Commercial clouds |
Kubernetes distributions and configurations for runtime threat protection in Azure
1 Any Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) certified Kubernetes clusters should be supported, but only the specified clusters have been tested on Azure.
2 To get Microsoft Defender for Containers protection for your environments, you need to onboard Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes and enable Defender for Containers as an Arc extension.
Feature |
Description |
Supported resources |
Linux release state |
Windows release state |
Enablement method |
Plans |
Clouds availability |
Control plane detection |
Detection of suspicious activity for Kubernetes based on Kubernetes audit trail |
EKS |
GA |
GA |
Enabled with plan |
Defender for Containers or Defender CSPM |
AWS |
Workload detection |
Monitors containerized workloads for threats and gives alerts to suspicious activities |
EKS |
GA |
- |
Requires Defender sensor |
Defender for Containers |
AWS |
Binary drift detection |
Detects binary of runtime container from container image |
EKS |
GA |
- |
Requires Defender sensor |
Defender for Containers |
AWS |
Advanced hunting in XDR |
View cluster incidents and alerts in Microsoft XDR |
EKS |
Preview - currently supports audit logs & process events |
Preview - currently supports audit logs |
Requires Defender sensor |
Defender for Containers |
AWS |
Response actions in XDR |
Provides automated and manual remediation in Microsoft XDR |
EKS |
Preview |
- |
Requires Defender sensor and K8S access API |
Defender for Containers |
AWS |
Malware detection |
Detection of malware |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
Kubernetes distributions/configurations support for runtime threat protection in AWS
1 Any Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) certified Kubernetes clusters should be supported, but only the specified clusters have been tested.
2 To get Microsoft Defender for Containers protection for your environments, you need to onboard Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes and enable Defender for Containers as an Arc extension.
Feature |
Description |
Supported resources |
Linux release state |
Windows release state |
Enablement method |
Plans |
Clouds availability |
Control plane detection |
Detection of suspicious activity for Kubernetes based on Kubernetes audit trail |
GKE |
GA |
GA |
Enabled with plan |
Defender for Containers |
GCP |
Workload detection |
Monitors containerized workloads for threats and gives alerts to suspicious activities |
GKE |
GA |
- |
Requires Defender sensor |
Defender for Containers |
GCP |
Binary drift detection |
Detects binary of runtime container from container image |
GKE |
GA |
- |
Requires Defender sensor |
Defender for Containers |
GCP |
Advanced hunting in XDR |
View cluster incidents and alerts in Microsoft XDR |
GKE |
Preview - currently supports audit logs & process events |
Preview - currently supports audit logs |
Requires Defender sensor |
Defender for Containers |
GCP |
Response actions in XDR |
Provides automated and manual remediation in Microsoft XDR |
GKE |
Preview |
- |
Requires Defender sensor and K8S access API |
Defender for Containers |
GCP |
Malware detection |
Detection of malware |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
Kubernetes distributions/configurations support for runtime threat protection in GCP
1 Any Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) certified Kubernetes clusters should be supported, but only the specified clusters have been tested.
2 To get Microsoft Defender for Containers protection for your environments, you need to onboard Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes and enable Defender for Containers as an Arc extension.
Feature |
Description |
Supported resources |
Linux release state |
Windows release state |
Enablement method |
Plans |
Clouds availability |
Control plane detection |
Detection of suspicious activity for Kubernetes based on Kubernetes audit trail |
Arc enabled K8s clusters |
Preview |
Preview |
Requires Defender sensor |
Defender for Containers |
|
Workload detection |
Monitors containerized workloads for threats and gives alerts to suspicious activities |
Arc enabled Kubernetes clusters |
Preview |
- |
Requires Defender sensor |
Defender for Containers |
|
Binary drift detection |
Detects binary of runtime container from container image |
|
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
Advanced hunting in XDR |
View cluster incidents and alerts in Microsoft XDR |
Arc enabled Kubernetes clusters |
Preview - currently supports audit logs & process events |
Preview - currently supports audit logs & process events |
Requires Defender sensor |
Defender for Containers |
|
Response actions in XDR |
Provides automated and manual remediation in Microsoft XDR |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
|
Malware detection |
Detection of malware |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
Kubernetes distributions/configurations for runtime threat protection in Arc enabled Kubernetes
1 Any Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) certified Kubernetes clusters should be supported, but only the specified clusters have been tested.
2 To get Microsoft Defender for Containers protection for your environments, you need to onboard Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes and enable Defender for Containers as an Arc extension.
Security posture management features
Feature |
Description |
Supported resources |
Linux release state |
Windows release state |
Enablement method |
Plans |
Clouds availability |
Agentless discovery for Kubernetes 1 |
Provides zero footprint, API-based discovery of Kubernetes clusters, their configurations and deployments. |
AKS |
GA |
GA |
Requires K8S API access |
Defender for Containers OR Defender CSPM |
Azure commercial clouds |
Comprehensive inventory capabilities |
Enables you to explore resources, pods, services, repositories, images, and configurations through security explorer to easily monitor and manage your assets. |
ACR, AKS |
GA |
GA |
Requires K8S API access |
Defender for Containers OR Defender CSPM |
Azure commercial clouds |
Attack path analysis |
A graph-based algorithm that scans the cloud security graph. The scans expose exploitable paths that attackers might use to breach your environment. |
ACR, AKS |
GA |
GA |
Requires K8S API access |
Defender CSPM |
Azure commercial clouds |
Enhanced risk-hunting |
Enables security admins to actively hunt for posture issues in their containerized assets through queries (built-in and custom) and security insights in the security explorer. |
ACR, AKS |
GA |
GA |
Requires K8S API access |
Defender for Containers OR Defender CSPM |
Azure commercial clouds |
Control plane hardening 1 |
Continuously assesses the configurations of your clusters and compares them with the initiatives applied to your subscriptions. When it finds misconfigurations, Defender for Cloud generates security recommendations that are available on Defender for Cloud's Recommendations page. The recommendations let you investigate and remediate issues. |
ACR, AKS |
GA |
GA |
Enabled with plan |
Free |
Commercial clouds
National clouds: Azure Government, Azure operated by 21Vianet |
Workload hardening 1 |
Protect workloads of your Kubernetes containers with best practice recommendations. |
AKS |
GA |
- |
Requires Azure Policy |
Free |
Commercial clouds
National clouds: Azure Government, Azure operated by 21Vianet |
CIS Azure Kubernetes Service |
CIS Azure Kubernetes Service Benchmark |
AKS |
GA |
- |
Assigned as a security standard |
Defender for Containers OR Defender CSPM |
Commercial clouds
|
1 This feature can be enabled for an individual cluster when enabling Defender for Containers at the cluster resource level.
Feature |
Description |
Supported resources |
Linux release state |
Windows release state |
Enablement method |
Plans |
Clouds availability |
Agentless discovery for Kubernetes |
Provides zero footprint, API-based discovery of Kubernetes clusters, their configurations and deployments. |
EKS |
GA |
GA |
Requires K8S API access |
Defender for Containers OR Defender CSPM |
Azure commercial clouds |
Comprehensive inventory capabilities |
Enables you to explore resources, pods, services, repositories, images, and configurations through security explorer to easily monitor and manage your assets. |
ECR, EKS |
GA |
GA |
Requires K8S API access |
Defender for Containers OR Defender CSPM |
AWS |
Attack path analysis |
A graph-based algorithm that scans the cloud security graph. The scans expose exploitable paths that attackers might use to breach your environment. |
ECR, EKS |
GA |
GA |
Requires K8S API access |
Defender CSPM (requires Agentless discovery for Kubernetes to be enabled) |
AWS |
Enhanced risk-hunting |
Enables security admins to actively hunt for posture issues in their containerized assets through queries (built-in and custom) and security insights in the security explorer. |
ECR, EKS |
GA |
GA |
Requires K8S API access |
Defender for Containers OR Defender CSPM |
AWS |
Control plane hardening |
Continuously assesses the configurations of your clusters and compares them with the initiatives applied to your subscriptions. When it finds misconfigurations, Defender for Cloud generates security recommendations that are available on Defender for Cloud's Recommendations page. The recommendations let you investigate and remediate issues. |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
Workload hardening |
Protect workloads of your Kubernetes containers with best practice recommendations. |
EKS |
GA |
- |
Requires Auto provision Azure Policy extension for Azure Arc |
Free |
AWS |
CIS Azure Kubernetes Service |
CIS Azure Kubernetes Service Benchmark |
EKS |
GA |
- |
Assigned as a security standard |
Defender for Containers OR Defender CSPM |
AWS |
Feature |
Description |
Supported resources |
Linux release state |
Windows release state |
Enablement method |
Plans |
Clouds availability |
Agentless discovery for Kubernetes |
Provides zero footprint, API-based discovery of Kubernetes clusters, their configurations and deployments. |
GKE |
GA |
GA |
Requires K8S API access |
Defender for Containers OR Defender CSPM |
GCP |
Comprehensive inventory capabilities |
Enables you to explore resources, pods, services, repositories, images, and configurations through security explorer to easily monitor and manage your assets. |
GCR, GAR, GKE |
GA |
GA |
Requires K8S API access |
Defender for Containers OR Defender CSPM |
GCP |
Attack path analysis |
A graph-based algorithm that scans the cloud security graph. The scans expose exploitable paths that attackers might use to breach your environment. |
GCR, GAR, GKE |
GA |
GA |
Requires K8S API access |
Defender CSPM |
GCP |
Enhanced risk-hunting |
Enables security admins to actively hunt for posture issues in their containerized assets through queries (built-in and custom) and security insights in the security explorer. |
GCR, GAR, GKE |
GA |
GA |
Requires K8S API access |
Defender for Containers OR Defender CSPM |
GCP |
Control plane hardening |
Continuously assesses the configurations of your clusters and compares them with the initiatives applied to your subscriptions. When it finds misconfigurations, Defender for Cloud generates security recommendations that are available on Defender for Cloud's Recommendations page. The recommendations let you investigate and remediate issues. |
GKE |
GA |
GA |
Activated with plan |
Free |
GCP |
Workload hardening |
Protect workloads of your Kubernetes containers with best practice recommendations. |
GKE |
GA |
- |
Requires Auto provision Azure Policy extension for Azure Arc |
Free |
GCP |
CIS Azure Kubernetes Service |
CIS Azure Kubernetes Service Benchmark |
GKE |
GA |
- |
Assigned as a security standard |
Defender for Containers OR Defender CSPM |
GCP |
Feature |
Description |
Supported resources |
Linux release state |
Windows release state |
Enablement method |
Plans |
Clouds availability |
Agentless discovery for Kubernetes |
Provides zero footprint, API-based discovery of Kubernetes clusters, their configurations and deployments. |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
Comprehensive inventory capabilities |
Enables you to explore resources, pods, services, repositories, images, and configurations through security explorer to easily monitor and manage your assets. |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
Attack path analysis |
A graph-based algorithm that scans the cloud security graph. The scans expose exploitable paths that attackers might use to breach your environment. |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
Enhanced risk-hunting |
Enables security admins to actively hunt for posture issues in their containerized assets through queries (built-in and custom) and security insights in the security explorer. |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
Control plane hardening |
Continuously assesses the configurations of your clusters and compares them with the initiatives applied to your subscriptions. When it finds misconfigurations, Defender for Cloud generates security recommendations that are available on Defender for Cloud's Recommendations page. The recommendations let you investigate and remediate issues. |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
Workload hardening |
Protect workloads of your Kubernetes containers with best practice recommendations. |
Arc enabled Kubernetes cluster |
GA |
- |
Requires Auto provision Azure Policy extension for Azure Arc |
Defender for Containers |
Arc enabled Kubernetes cluster |
CIS Azure Kubernetes Service |
CIS Azure Kubernetes Service Benchmark |
Arc enabled VMs |
Preview |
- |
Assigned as a security standard |
Defender for Containers OR Defender CSPM |
Arc enabled Kubernetes cluster |
Feature |
Description |
Supported resources |
Linux release state |
Windows release state |
Enablement method |
Plans |
Clouds availability |
Comprehensive inventory capabilities |
Enables you to explore resources, pods, services, repositories, images, and configurations through security explorer to easily monitor and manage your assets. |
Docker Hub, JFrog Artifactory |
Preview |
Preview |
Connector creation |
Foundational CSPM OR Defender CSPM OR Defender for Containers |
- |
Attack path analysis |
A graph-based algorithm that scans the cloud security graph. The scans expose exploitable paths that attackers might use to breach your environment. |
Docker Hub, JFrog Artifactory |
Preview |
Preview |
Connector creation |
Defender CSPM |
- |
Enhanced risk-hunting |
Enables security admins to actively hunt for posture issues in their containerized assets through queries (built-in and custom) and security insights in the security explorer. |
Docker Hub, JFrog |
Preview |
Preview |
Connector creation |
Defender for Containers OR Defender CSPM |
|
Containers software supply chain protection features
Feature |
Description |
Supported resources |
Linux release state |
Windows release state |
Enablement method |
Plans |
Clouds availability |
Gated deployment |
Gated deployment of container images to your Kubernetes environment |
AKS 1.32 or higher |
Preview |
Preview |
Enabled with plan |
Defender for Containers or Defender CSPM |
Commercial clouds National clouds: Azure Government, Azure operated by 21Vianet |
Feature |
Description |
Supported resources |
Linux release state |
Windows release state |
Enablement method |
Plans |
Clouds availability |
Gated deployment |
Gated deployment of container images to your Kubernetes environment |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
Feature |
Description |
Supported resources |
Linux release state |
Windows release state |
Enablement method |
Plans |
Clouds availability |
Gated deployment |
Gated deployment of container images to your Kubernetes environment |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
Feature |
Description |
Supported resources |
Linux release state |
Windows release state |
Enablement method |
Plans |
Clouds availability |
Gated deployment |
Gated deployment of container images to your Kubernetes environment |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
Network restrictions
Aspect |
Details |
Outbound proxy support |
Outbound proxy without authentication and outbound proxy with basic authentication are supported. Outbound proxy that expects trusted certificates is currently not supported. |
Clusters with IP restrictions |
If your Kubernetes cluster in AWS has control plane IP restrictions enabled (see Amazon EKS cluster endpoint access control - Amazon EKS ), the control plane's IP restriction configuration is updated to include the CIDR block of Microsoft Defender for Cloud. |
Aspect |
Details |
Outbound proxy support |
Outbound proxy without authentication and outbound proxy with basic authentication are supported. Outbound proxy that expects trusted certificates is currently not supported. |
Clusters with IP restrictions |
If your Kubernetes cluster in GCP has control plane IP restrictions enabled (see GKE - Add authorized networks for control plane access ), the control plane's IP restriction configuration is updated to include the CIDR block of Microsoft Defender for Cloud. |
Aspect |
Details |
Outbound proxy support |
Outbound proxy without authentication and outbound proxy with basic authentication are supported. Outbound proxy that expects trusted certificates is currently not supported. |
Supported host operating systems
Defender for Containers relies on the Defender sensor for several features. The Defender sensor is supported only with Linux Kernel 5.4 and above, on the following host operating systems:
- Amazon Linux 2
- CentOS 8 (CentOS is End Of Service as of June 30, 2024. For more information, see the CentOS End Of Life guidance.)
- Debian 10
- Debian 11
- Google Container-Optimized OS
- Azure Linux 1.0
- Azure Linux 2.0
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
- Ubuntu 16.04
- Ubuntu 18.04
- Ubuntu 20.04
- Ubuntu 22.04
Ensure your Kubernetes node is running on one of these verified operating systems. Clusters with unsupported host operating systems don't get the benefits of features relying on Defender sensor.
Defender sensor limitations
The Defender sensor in AKS V1.28 and below isn't supported on Arm64 nodes.
Next steps