For a Kubernetes config auditing tool, the first results are armosec/kubescape (Kubescape actively scans Kubernetes clusters for security misconfigurations and vulnerabilities in workloads, covering container images, pod security contexts, network policies, CIS benchmarks, and admission control—matching all the key capabilities you're looking for), kubescape/kubescape and aquasecurity/kube-hunter (Kube-hunter is a penetration testing scanner that actively probes Kubernetes clusters for vulnerabilities and misconfigurations, which matches your need for active scanning, but it does not provide continuous runtime monitoring or admission controller integration). anchore/syft and kyverno/kyverno round out the shortlist. Compare the match explanations and check the project documentation against your requirements.
Identify and analyze running container configurations to detect security vulnerabilities and misconfigurations within Kubernetes clusters.
Kubescape is a security platform for Kubernetes that provides tools for scanning clusters, configurations, and container images against industry compliance and security benchmarks. It functions as a suite of security utilities, including a compliance auditor, a misconfiguration scanner, and a container vulnerability scanner. The project differentiates itself through automated remediation and active enforcement. It can automatically patch operating system vulnerabilities in images and fix security errors within manifest files. It also utilizes an admission controller to block the deployment of
Kubescape actively scans Kubernetes clusters for security misconfigurations and vulnerabilities in workloads, covering container images, pod security contexts, network policies, CIS benchmarks, and admission control—matching all the key capabilities you're looking for.
Kubescape is a Kubernetes security posture management platform designed to scan clusters, manifests, and images for misconfigurations, vulnerabilities, and compliance risks. It functions as a comprehensive security suite incorporating a compliance scanner, a container image vulnerability scanner, an admission controller for policy enforcement, and a runtime security monitor. The platform distinguishes itself through runtime-aware vulnerability filtering, which maps libraries loaded in memory to determine if vulnerabilities are actually reachable. It also integrates with AI assistants via a Mo
Kubescape is a Kubernetes security posture management platform that directly covers the requested capabilities: it scans clusters and images for misconfigurations and vulnerabilities, includes CIS benchmark compliance, runtime monitoring, and an admission controller, making it a comprehensive runtime security scanner for your Kubernetes environment.
Kube-hunter is a security scanner and vulnerability hunter for Kubernetes clusters. It operates as a cloud-native penetration tool designed to identify security weaknesses, infrastructure misconfigurations, and exploitable gaps by simulating attacker techniques. The tool distinguishes itself through a dual-mode scanning engine that executes both remote external probes and internal network scans. It features identity-based impersonation, allowing it to use service account tokens and pod identities to simulate security access from specific cluster roles and determine the potential blast radius
Kube-hunter is a penetration testing scanner that actively probes Kubernetes clusters for vulnerabilities and misconfigurations, which matches your need for active scanning, but it does not provide continuous runtime monitoring or admission controller integration.
Syft is a software bill of materials generator, container image scanner, and software dependency catalog. It analyzes container images and filesystems to produce comprehensive inventories of installed packages and dependencies in standard formats. Additionally, it serves as a software attestation tool and an SBOM format converter. The project distinguishes itself through the ability to create cryptographically signed attestations for software inventories to ensure provenance and integrity. It also provides the capability to transform software bills of materials between different industry sche
Syft generates SBOMs and scans container images for vulnerabilities, but it does not monitor running Kubernetes clusters, check pod security contexts, analyze network policies, or provide real-time runtime monitoring—it is a complementary build-time tool, not a runtime security scanner.
Kyverno is a Kubernetes policy engine and cloud native governance tool. It functions as a policy-as-code framework that validates, mutates, and generates resources to enforce security and governance standards within a cluster. The project distinguishes itself through a declarative policy model that utilizes native Kubernetes custom resource definitions, allowing policies to be managed as standard cluster objects without custom code. It provides specific security capabilities for container image verification and signature validation to ensure only trusted images are deployed. Its broader capa
Kyverno is a Kubernetes policy engine and admission controller that enforces security and governance rules, but it does not actively scan clusters for runtime vulnerabilities or misconfigurations the way a dedicated runtime security scanner would.
Clair is a container vulnerability scanner that performs static analysis of container images to identify known security vulnerabilities. It functions as an analyzer for OCI and Docker images, indexing their contents to detect security risks and outdated packages without requiring the containers to be running. The tool identifies vulnerabilities by matching indexed container components against security databases to find common vulnerabilities and exposures. This process involves analyzing filesystem layers to track the provenance and versioning of packages across the image hierarchy. The proj
Clair is a static container image vulnerability scanner, not a tool that actively scans running Kubernetes clusters for misconfigurations or runtime threats — it analyzes images at rest rather than monitoring live workloads or checking pod security contexts, network policies, or CIS benchmarks.
Grype is a command-line security scanner designed to identify known vulnerabilities within container images, filesystems, and software manifests. It functions as a software composition analysis tool that detects security flaws in application components and open-source libraries to support supply chain security. The tool distinguishes itself by reconstructing the final state of container images through layered filesystem inspection and normalizing diverse package formats into a unified dependency graph. It maintains a local cache of security advisories synchronized from multiple upstream sourc
Grype is a container image vulnerability scanner, not a Kubernetes runtime security scanner — it lacks the pod security context, network policy, CIS benchmark, runtime monitoring, and admission controller checks you need.
Tracee is a cloud-native runtime security and forensics tool that uses eBPF to capture system calls and kernel events in real time. It operates as a standalone binary or a Helm-deployable agent for Kubernetes, normalizing system calls, network events, and container activities into a unified event pipeline for consistent analysis. The tool distinguishes itself through policy-driven event filtering using YAML-based rules, allowing users to target specific workloads and reduce noise during monitoring. It includes built-in threat detection signatures that flag suspicious behavioral patterns witho
Tracee is a runtime security monitor that uses eBPF to detect threats and anomalous kernel events in real time, but it does not scan for misconfigurations, vulnerabilities, or CIS benchmark compliance in Kubernetes workloads, which is the core need here.
Clair is a container image vulnerability scanner and security analyzer. It performs static analysis of container images by matching package contents against vulnerability databases to identify security risks across different package formats and architectures. The project functions as both an image indexer and a vulnerability database manager. It processes container layers into intermediate representations to enable fast security lookups and synchronizes security metadata from multiple external sources to maintain a local registry. Capability areas include continuous security monitoring, whic
Clair is a static container image vulnerability scanner that analyzes images for known vulnerabilities, but it does not scan running Kubernetes workloads for pod security context violations, network policy issues, CIS benchmark compliance, or provide real-time runtime monitoring, so it only covers one aspect of a full Kubernetes runtime security scanner.
Trivy is a comprehensive security scanner designed to identify vulnerabilities and misconfigurations across container images, filesystems, and infrastructure as code files. It functions as a software composition analysis tool and an infrastructure security scanner, providing automated checks for CI/CD pipelines and cloud environments to ensure the integrity of the software supply chain. The tool distinguishes itself through a modular, plugin-based architecture that allows for the independent inspection of diverse targets. It utilizes a declarative policy engine to evaluate configurations agai
Trivy scans container images, Kubernetes manifests, and infrastructure-as-code for vulnerabilities and misconfigurations, but it does not provide real-time runtime monitoring of running workloads or native admission controller integration for active enforcement.
SecretScanner is a security tool designed to search filesystems and container images for unprotected passwords, API keys, and other sensitive data. It functions as a static secret detector and container image scanner that identifies hardcoded credentials by matching content against a database of known secret types. The tool inspects container image layers to find secrets hidden within the filesystem hierarchy and parses local directories and host-mounted paths. It provides the ability to export scan findings in machine-readable JSON format for automated analysis and processing. The scanning
Deepfence/SecretScanner is a static secret detector for container images, not a runtime security scanner that checks Kubernetes configurations, network policies, or CIS benchmarks — it covers only one narrow security concern, so it doesn't match the full scope of runtime cluster monitoring and vulnerability scanning you're after.
This project is a security compliance tool and configuration auditor designed to evaluate Docker deployments against industry security benchmarks. It functions as a script-based scanner that identifies misconfigurations and vulnerabilities within both the host operating system and container settings. The tool specifically implements the Center for Internet Security standards for Docker to verify host and container configurations. It enables a hardening workflow by comparing system states against these standards to identify security gaps and document compliance status. The audit engine suppor
This tool audits Docker host and container configurations against CIS Docker benchmarks, not Kubernetes clusters, so it does not address the Kubernetes runtime security scanning and pod-level checks you need.
| Repository | Stars | Language | License | Last push |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| armosec/kubescape | 11.5K | Go | Apache-2.0 | |
| kubescape/kubescape | 11.5K | Go | Apache-2.0 | |
| 5.1K |
| Python |
| Apache-2.0 |
| anchore/syft | 8.4K | Go | apache-2.0 |
| kyverno/kyverno | 7.8K | Go | Apache-2.0 |
| coreos/clair | 11K | Go | Apache-2.0 |
| anchore/grype | 12.4K | Go | Apache-2.0 |
| aquasecurity/tracee | 4.4K | Go | apache-2.0 |
| quay/clair | 11K | Go | Apache-2.0 |
| aquasecurity/trivy | 36.5K | Go | Apache-2.0 |