Trivy Consulting

Trivy is an open-source security scanner used by DevOps, platform, and cloud engineering teams to identify vulnerabilities and misconfigurations across software supply chains. It helps teams catch issues early by scanning container images, filesystems, Git repositories, and infrastructure-as-code before changes reach production.

Trivy is commonly run in CI/CD pipelines and container build workflows, and can also be used locally during development. It integrates well with Kubernetes environments by scanning images and configuration artifacts as part of release and compliance processes.

• Vulnerability scanning for OS packages and application dependencies
• Container image and filesystem scanning for common security issues
• Misconfiguration checks for IaC and Kubernetes manifests
• Support for SBOM generation and supply chain visibility
• Policy and reporting outputs suitable for automated pipelines

Trivy is an open-source security scanner used to detect vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and exposed secrets across container images, Kubernetes, and infrastructure-as-code. It is commonly adopted to standardize security checks in CI/CD and improve cloud-native security posture with fast, repeatable scans.

• Scans container images for known CVEs across OS packages and language-specific dependencies to reduce supply-chain risk.
• Detects misconfigurations in Kubernetes manifests, Helm charts, and Terraform to catch insecure defaults before deployment.
• Supports secret scanning to identify hardcoded credentials and tokens in repositories and build artifacts.
• Integrates cleanly into CI/CD pipelines, enabling policy gates and consistent security checks on every pull request and release.
• Provides Kubernetes runtime scanning options to assess cluster workloads and configurations beyond build-time checks.
• Works with common container registries to scan images where they live, improving coverage for multi-team platforms.
• Produces machine-readable outputs (for example JSON and SARIF) to feed dashboards, defect tracking, and security reporting workflows.
• Offers configurable severity thresholds and ignore rules to manage noise while keeping focus on actionable risk.
• Runs as a lightweight CLI and is easy to containerize, making it suitable for ephemeral build agents and GitOps workflows.
• Maintains broad ecosystem support and frequent vulnerability database updates, which is critical for timely detection.

Trivy is a strong fit for teams standardizing “shift-left” scanning across containers and IaC, especially in Kubernetes-centric environments. Like most scanners, it benefits from tuning to reduce false positives and should be paired with remediation workflows and dependency update automation for sustained impact.

Common alternatives include Grype, Clair, Snyk, and Aqua Security.

Our experience with Trivy helped us build practical security automation patterns and reusable delivery playbooks that clients could apply across containerized and cloud-native environments, from early development to production operations.

Some of the things we did include:

• Integrated Trivy into CI/CD pipelines to fail builds on critical CVEs, with consistent policy enforcement across teams and repositories.
• Implemented image scanning for Docker registries and release workflows, including SBOM generation and artifact retention practices.
• Deployed Trivy scanning in Kubernetes clusters to continuously assess running workloads and reduce drift between build-time and runtime security.
• Added IaC scanning for Terraform and Kubernetes manifests to catch misconfigurations before merge, with actionable feedback for developers.
• Standardized vulnerability reporting outputs (SARIF/JSON) and integrated results into engineering dashboards and ticketing flows for remediation tracking.
• Designed exception handling and risk-acceptance workflows (temporary allowlists, expiry, ownership) to keep delivery moving without losing auditability.
• Optimized scan performance in large monorepos and high-throughput pipelines by caching databases, tuning concurrency, and reducing redundant scans.
• Hardened container build processes by pairing Trivy findings with base image strategy, dependency pinning, and repeatable build steps.
• Trained teams on interpreting findings, prioritizing remediation, and building secure-by-default templates that aligned with internal standards.

This experience helped us accumulate significant knowledge across multiple Trivy use-cases—CI enforcement, registry and cluster scanning, and IaC validation—and enables us to deliver high-quality Trivy setups that are maintainable, auditable, and aligned with real delivery constraints.

Some of the things we can help you do with Trivy include:

• Assess your current container, Kubernetes, and IaC security posture and deliver a prioritized findings report with remediation recommendations.
• Create an adoption roadmap for consistent vulnerability and misconfiguration scanning across teams, environments, and release pipelines.
• Implement Trivy scanning in CI/CD (PR checks, build gates, and release approvals) with actionable policies and developer-friendly feedback.
• Deploy and configure Trivy for Kubernetes and registry scanning, including schedules, exclusions, and severity thresholds aligned to risk.
• Define security guardrails for compliance needs (e.g., vulnerability SLAs, blocking rules, exception workflows, and audit-ready reporting).
• Harden and tune scanning for performance and cost by optimizing cache usage, scan scope, concurrency, and artifact retention.
• Integrate scanning into IaC workflows (Terraform, Helm, and YAML) to catch misconfigurations early and prevent drift.
• Operationalize results with notifications and dashboards in your observability stack, plus runbooks for triage and remediation.
• Enable teams with hands-on training, secure-by-default templates, and reusable pipeline patterns to standardize delivery.