OpenShift docs are moving and will soon only be available at docs.redhat.com, the home of all Red Hat product documentation. Explore the new docs experience today.
  1. Documentation
    2. history
×

Managing vulnerabilities

Vulnerability Management view

The Vulnerability Management view displays information you can act on in multiple widgets. For example, you can identify the riskiest deployments in your infrastructure from the Top Risky Deployments widget.

To open the Vulnerability Management view:

  • Navigate to the RHACS portal and click Vulnerability Management from the navigation menu. The Vulnerability Management view presents information in multiple interactive widgets.

The Vulnerability Management view presents information using various user interface components, including widgets, headers, views, panels, tabs, and sidebar. Using all these components gives you a complete view of the vulnerabilities and their relation to other entities, such as deployments, images, and components.

Use the following instructions to understand various user interface components of the Vulnerability Management view and their usage.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the RHACS portal and click Vulnerability Management from the navigation menu.

  2. Click View All for the Top Risky Deployments by CVE Count and CVSS score widget to open the Deployments view. This view lists detailed information about all deployments in your infrastructure. The Deployments view header includes options to export and switch between different entity views. You can also filter the list of deployments.

  3. On the Deployments view, click on a deployment row from the list to open the Deployment details panel. The Deployment details panel includes deployment Summary and Findings sections, and the Related entities sidebar.

    • The Summary section shows detailed information about the deployment in multiple interactive widgets.

    • The Findings section shows failing policies and fixable CVEs for the deployment.

    • The Related entities sidebar shows the number of related entities under Matches and Contains sections. For deployment details, it shows the number of policies, images, components, and CVEs for the selected deployment.

  4. Under the Deployment Findings section, click the Fixable CVEs tab to view the list of all the fixable CVEs for the selected deployment.

  5. Click on a CVE from the fixable CVEs list to view the CVE Summary. CVE summary opens in the same panel.

  6. Click Components in the Related entities sidebar to view a list of components affected by the selected CVE. Notice the panel header, it shows a list of all panels you viewed as breadcrumbs.

  7. You can click on the Back icon to go back to the previous panel. Click on the Deployment name from the panel header breadcrumbs to open the Deployment details panel.

  8. Click on the Open view icon in the panel header (near the close panel icon) to open the Deployment details view. You can then select different tabs to view information about images, components, policies, and CVEs for the selected deployment.

Other views

The Vulnerability Management view also includes multiple other views that all provide information in the context of vulnerabilities.

The available views are:

  • Clusters

  • Namespaces

  • Deployments

  • Images

  • Components

  • CVEs

  • Policies

All these views show a list of items for the selected entity type. You can select the column heading to sort the items and also use local page filtering.

You can easily switch between different views. For example:

  • To switch to the Clusters view, from the Vulnerability Management view:

    • Go to Application & Infrastructure → Clusters.

  • To switch to the Clusters view, from a different view:

    • Go to All Entities → Clusters.

Identifying top risky objects

Use the Vulnerability Management view for identifying the top risky objects in your environment. The Top Risky widget displays information about the top risky images, deployments, clusters, and namespaces in your environment. The risk is determined based on the number of vulnerabilities and their CVSS scores.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the RHACS portal and click Vulnerability Management from the navigation menu.

  2. Select the Top Risky widget header to choose between riskiest images, deployments, clusters, and namespaces.

    The small circles on the chart represent the chosen object (image, deployment, cluster, namespace). Hover over the circles to see an overview of the object they represent. And select a circle to view detailed information about the selected object, its related entities, and the connections between them.

    For example, if you are viewing Top Risky Deployments by CVE Count and CVSS score, each circle on the chart represents a deployment.

    • When you hover over a deployment, you see an overview of the deployment, which includes deployment name, name of the cluster and namespace, severity, risk priority, CVSS, and CVE count (including fixable).

    • When you select a deployment, the Deployment view opens for the selected deployment. The Deployment view shows in-depth details of the deployment and includes information about policy violations, common vulnerabilities, CVEs, and riskiest images for that deployment.

  3. Select View All on the widget header to view all objects of the chosen type. For example, if you chose Top Risky Deployments by CVE Count and CVSS score, you can select View All to view detailed information about all deployments in your infrastructure.

Identifying top riskiest images and components

Similar to the Top Risky, the Top Riskiest widget lists the names of the top riskiest images and components. This widget also includes the total number of CVEs and the number of fixable CVEs in the listed images.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the RHACS portal and click Vulnerability Management from the navigation menu.

  2. Select the Top Riskiest Images widget header to choose between the riskiest images and components. If you are viewing Top Riskiest Images:

    • When you hover over an image in the list, you see an overview of the image, which includes image name, scan time, and the number of CVEs along with severity (critical, high, medium, and low).

    • When you select an image, the Image view opens for the selected image. The Image view shows in-depth details of the image and includes information about CVEs by CVSS score, top riskiest components, fixable CVEs, and Dockerfile for the image.

  3. Select View All on the widget header to view all objects of the chosen type. For example, if you chose Top Riskiest Components, you can select View All to view detailed information about all components in your infrastructure.

Viewing the Dockerfile for an image

Use the Vulnerability Management view to find the root cause of vulnerabilities in an image. You can view the Dockerfile and find exactly which command in the Dockerfile introduced the vulnerabilities and all components that are associated with that single command.

The Dockerfile tab shows information about:

  • All the layers in the Dockerfile

  • The instructions and their value for each layer

  • The components included in each layer

  • The number of CVEs in components for each layer

When there are components introduced by a specific layer, you can select the expand icon to see a summary of its components. If there are any CVEs in those components, you can select the expand icon for an individual component to get more details about the CVEs affecting that component.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the RHACS portal and click Vulnerability Management from the navigation menu.

  2. Select an image from the Top Riskiest Images widget.

  3. In the Image details view, select the Dockerfile tab under the Image Findings section.

Viewing frequently violated policies

Use the Frequently Violated Policies widget on the Vulnerability Management view to identify the most frequently violated policies in your clusters.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the RHACS portal and click Vulnerability Management from the navigation menu.

  2. Hover over the policies listed in the Frequently Violated Policies widget to see an overview of the policy. The overview includes policy name, policy category, policy description, and date and time when the policy was last violated.

  3. Select View All on the widget header to open the Policies view, which lists all policies in your infrastructure. It includes information about policy description, policy status, last updated date and time, latest violation date and time, severity, deployments, policy life-cycle, and enforcement.

  4. In the Policies view, select a policy to view additional details about a specific policy, including policy scope, excluded images and deployment for the policy, and list of all deployments where this policy is failing. This information appears in the Policy details panel on the right.

  5. In the Policy details panel, select a deployment under the Policy Findings section. Deployment details open in the same panel for the selected deployment. Violation comments and tags appear under the Deployment Findings section.

Using comments and tags

You can use tags and comments to specify what is happening with violations to keep your team up to date. Comments allow you to add text notes to violations and tags allow you to categorize your violations.

Adding comments

Comments allow you to add text notes to violations, so that everyone in the team can check what is happening with a violation.

Prerequisites

  • To add and remove comments, you need a role with write permission for the resource you are modifying. For example, to add comments on violations, your role must have write permission for the Alert resource.

  • To delete comments from other users, you need a role with write permission for the AllComments resource.

    You can edit and delete your own comments.
Procedure

  1. Click New in the Violations Comments section header.

  2. Enter your comment in the comment editor. You can also add links in the comment editor. When someone clicks on the link in a comment, the linked resource opens in a new tab in their browser.

  3. Click Save.

All comments are visible under the Violations Comments section, and you can edit and delete comments by selecting Edit or Delete icon for a specific comment.

Adding tags

You can use custom tags to categorize your violations. Then you can filter the Violations view to show violations for selected tags (Tag attribute).

Prerequisites

  • To add and remove tags, you need a role with write permission for the resource you are modifying. For example, to add tags on violations, your role must have write permission for the Alert resource.

  • To delete tags from other users, you need a role with write permission for the AllComments resource.

    You can edit and delete your own tags.
Procedure

  1. Select the drop-down menu in the Violation Tags section. Existing tags appear as a list (up to 10).

  2. Click on an existing tag or enter a new tag and then press Enter. As you enter your query, Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security for Kubernetes automatically displays relevant suggestions for the existing tags that match.

You can add more than one tag for a violation. All tags are visible under the Violation Tags section and you can remove tags by clicking on the Remove icon for a specific tag.

Viewing recently detected vulnerabilities

The Recently Detected Vulnerabilities widget on the Vulnerability Management view shows a list of recently discovered vulnerabilities in your scanned images, based on the scan time and CVSS score. It also includes information about the number of images affected by the CVE and its impact (percentage) on your environment.

  • When you hover over a CVE in the list, you see an overview of the CVE, which includes scan time, CVSS score, description, impact, and whether it’s scored by using CVSS v2 or v3.

  • When you select a CVE, the CVE details view opens for the selected CVE. The CVE details view shows in-depth details of the CVE and the components, images, and deployments and deployments in which it appears.

  • Select View All on the Recently Detected Vulnerabilities widget header to view a list of all the CVEs in your infrastructure. You can also filter the list of CVEs.

Viewing the most common vulnerabilities

The Most Common Vulnerabilities widget on the Vulnerability Management view shows a list of vulnerabilities that affect the largest number of deployments and images arranged by their CVSS score.

  • When you hover over a CVE in the list, you see an overview of the CVE which includes, scan time, CVSS score, description, impact, and whether it is scored by using CVSS v2 or v3.

  • When you select a CVE, the CVE details view opens for the selected CVE. The CVE details view shows in-depth details of the CVE and the components, images, and deployments and deployments in which it appears.

  • Select View All on the Most Common Vulnerabilities widget header to view a list of all the CVEs in your infrastructure. You can also filter the list of CVEs. To export the CVEs as a CSV file, select Export → Download CVES as CSV.

Identifying deployments with most severe policy violations

The Deployments with most severe policy violations widget on the Vulnerability Management view shows a list of deployments and severity of vulnerabilities affecting that deployment.

  • When you hover over a deployment in the list, you see an overview of the deployment, which includes the deployment name, the name of the cluster and the namespace in which the deployment exists, and the number of failing policies and their severity.

  • When you select a deployment, the Deployment view opens for the selected deployment. The Deployment view shows in-depth details of the deployment and includes information about policy violations, common vulnerabilities, CVEs, and riskiest images for that deployment.

  • Select View All on the Most Common Vulnerabilities widget header to view a list of all the CVEs in your infrastructure. You can also filter the list of CVEs. To export the CVEs as a CSV file, select Export → Download CVES as CSV.

Finding clusters with most Kubernetes and Istio vulnerabilities

Use the Vulnerability Management view for identifying the clusters with most Kubernetes and Istio vulnerabilities in your environment.

The Clusters with most K8S & Istio Vulnerabilities widget shows a list of clusters, ranked by the number of Kubernetes and Istio vulnerabilities in each cluster. The cluster on top of the list is the cluster with the highest number of vulnerabilities.

Procedure

  1. Click on one of the clusters from the list to view details about the cluster. The Cluster view includes:

    • Cluster Details section, which shows cluster details and metadata, top risky objects (deployments, namespaces, and images), recently detected vulnerabilities, riskiest images, and deployments with the most severe policy violations.

    • Cluster Findings section, which includes a list of failing policies and list of fixable CVEs.

    • Related Entities section, which shows the number of namespaces, deployments, policies, images, components, and CVEs the cluster contains. You can select these entities to view more details.

  2. Click View All on the widget header to view the list of all clusters.

Creating policies to block specific CVEs

You can create new policies or add specific CVEs to an existing policy from the Vulnerability Management view.

Procedure

  1. Click CVEs from the Vulnerability Management view header.

  2. Select the checkboxes (leftmost column) for one or more CVEs and then click Add selected CVEs to Policy (add icon). Or, move the mouse over a CVE in the list, and select the Add icon on the right side.

  3. For Policy Name:

    • To add the CVE to an existing policy, select an existing policy from the drop-down list box.

    • To create a new policy, enter the name for the new policy, and select Create <policy_name>.

  4. Select a value for Severity, either Critical, High, Medium, or Low.

  5. Choose the Lifecycle Stage to which your policy is applicable, from Build, or Deploy. You can also select both life-cycle stages.

  6. Enter details about the policy in the Description box.

  7. Turn off the Enable Policy toggle if you want to create the policy but enable it later. The Enable Policy toggle is on by default.

  8. Verify the listed CVEs which are included in this policy.

  9. Click Save Policy.

Snoozing and unsnoozing CVEs

If you determine that certain CVEs do not relate to your infrastructure for the moment, you can snooze those CVEs. Later, when the CVEs are relevant, you can unsnooze those CVEs. You can also snooze CVEs for a certain amount of time, such as a day, a week, two weeks, a month, or indefinitely (until you unsnooze).

When you snooze a CVE, Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security for Kubernetes stops showing that CVE in widgets and other views and ignores its impact on your environment. If the snoozed CVE is part of a policy and if all the CVEs in that policy are snoozed, the policy does not generate a violation. When you unsnooze or the specified time lapses, the CVEs start showing up again as usual, and the policy violations resume.

Snoozing CVEs

Use the Vulnerability Management view to snooze CVEs that do not relate to your infrastructure. You can snooze CVEs for a day, a week, two weeks, a month, or indefinitely (until you unsnooze).

Procedure

  1. From the Vulnerability Management view header, select CVEs.

  2. Select the checkboxes (leftmost column) for one or more CVEs and then select Snooze CVE (bell icon). Or, move the mouse over a CVE in the list and select the Bell icon on the right side.

  3. Select the time such as a day, a week, two weeks, a month, or indefinitely (until you unsnooze).

Viewing snoozed CVEs

Use the Vulnerability Management view to see the list of all snoozed CVEs.

Procedure

  1. From the Vulnerability Management view header, click CVEs.

  2. On the CVEs view, click on the View Snoozed CVEs icon on the right side of the filter bar.

Unsnoozing CVEs

Use the Vulnerability Management view to unsnooze CVEs that you have previously snoozed.

Procedure

  1. From the Vulnerability Management view header, click CVEs.

  2. On the CVEs view, click on the View Snoozed CVEs icon on the right side of the filter bar.

  3. Select the checkboxes (leftmost column) for one or more CVEs and then select Unsnooze CVE (bell icon). Or, move the mouse over a CVE in the list, and select the Bell icon on the right side.

Identifying vulnerabilities in nodes

You can use the Vulnerability Management view to identify vulnerabilities in your nodes. The identified vulnerabilities include vulnerabilities in:

  • Core Kubernetes components.

  • Container runtimes (Docker, CRI-O, runC, and containerd).

    • Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security for Kubernetes does not support identifying vulnerabilities in nodes on OpenShift Container Platform.

    • Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security for Kubernetes can identify vulnerabilities in the following operating systems:

      • Amazon Linux 2

      • CentOS

      • Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS)

      • Debian

      • Garden Linux (Debian 11)

      • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

      • Ubuntu (AWS, Azure, GCP, and GKE specific versions)
Procedure

  1. Select Nodes on the Vulnerability Management view header to view a list of all the CVEs affecting your nodes.

  2. Select a node from the list to view details of all CVEs affecting that node.

    1. When you select a node, the Node details panel opens for the selected node. The Node view shows in-depth details of the node and includes information about CVEs by CVSS score and fixable CVEs for that node.

    2. Select View All on the CVEs by CVSS score widget header to view a list of all the CVEs in the selected node. You can also filter the list of CVEs.

    3. To export the fixable CVEs as a CSV file, select Export as CSV under the Node Findings section.

Disabling identifying vulnerabilities in nodes

Identifying vulnerabilities in nodes is enabled by default. You can disable it from the RHACS portal.

Procedure

  1. On the RHACS portal, navigate to Platform Configuration → Integrations.

  2. Under Image Integrations, select StackRox Scanner.

  3. From the list of scanners, select StackRox Scanner to view its details.

  4. Remove the Node Scanner option from Types.

  5. Select Save.

Scanning inactive images

Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security for Kubernetes scans all active (deployed) images every 4 hours and updates the image scan results to reflect the latest vulnerability definitions.

You can also configure Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security for Kubernetes to scan inactive (not deployed) images automatically.

Procedure

  1. Select Images on the Vulnerability Management view header to view a list of all the images.

  2. On the Images view header, select Watch Images.

  3. In the Manage Inactive Images dialog, enter the inactive image’s name (and not the image id) for which you want to enable scanning.

  4. Select Add Image. Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security for Kubernetes then scans the image and shows the error or success message.

  5. Select Return to Image list to view the Images view.

Common tasks

This section lists some common tasks you can perform from the Vulnerability Management view.

Finding critical CVEs impacting your infrastructure

Use the Vulnerability Management view for identifying CVEs that are impacting your platform the most.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the RHACS portal and click Vulnerability Management from the navigation menu.

  2. Select CVEs on the Vulnerability Management view header.

  3. In the CVEs view, select the Env Impact column header to arrange the CVEs in descending order (highest first) based on the environment impact.

Finding the most vulnerable image components

Use the Vulnerability Management view for identifying highly vulnerable image components.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the RHACS portal and click Vulnerability Management from the navigation menu.

  2. From the Vulnerability Management view header, select Application & Infrastructure → Components.

  3. In the Components view, select the CVEs column header to arrange the components in descending order (highest first) based on the CVEs count.

Identifying the container image layer that introduces vulnerabilities

Use the Vulnerability Management view to identify vulnerable components and the image layer they appear in.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the RHACS portal and click Vulnerability Management from the navigation menu.

  2. Select an image from the Top Riskiest Images widget.

  3. In the Image details view, select the Dockerfile tab under the Image Findings section.

  4. In the Dockerfile tab under the Image Findings section, select the expand icon to see a summary of image components.

  5. Select the expand icon for specific components to get more details about the CVEs affecting the selected component.

Viewing details only for fixable CVEs

Use the Vulnerability Management view to filter and show only the fixable CVEs.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the RHACS portal and click Vulnerability Management from the navigation menu.

  2. From the Vulnerability Management view header, select Filter CVEs → Fixable.

Identifying the operating system of the base image

Use the Vulnerability Management view to identify the operating system of the base image.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the RHACS portal and click Vulnerability Management from the navigation menu.

  2. From the Vulnerability Management view header, select Images.

  3. View the base operating system (OS) and OS version for all images under the Image OS column.

  4. Select an image to view its details. The base operating system is also available under the Image Summary → Details and Metadata section.

Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security for Kubernetes lists the Image OS as unknown when either:

  • The operating system information is not available, or

  • If the image scanner in use does not provide this information.

Docker Trusted Registry, Google Container Registry, and Anchore do not provide this information.