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    6. Image analysis sandbox

    Image analysis sandbox

    The image analysis sandbox lets you dynamically analyze the runtime behaviour of images before running them in your development and production environments.
    The analysis mechanism collects and displays container behaviours by safely exercising the image in a sandbox machine. It also exposes risks and identifies suspicious dependencies buried deep in your software supply chain that would otherwise be missed by static analysis for vulnerabilities and compliance issues.
    Running the analysis is supported for Linux images on Docker container runtime.

    Setup the sandbox machine

    In order to run a sandbox analysis for an image, you first need to set up a dedicated sandbox virtual machine.
    Prerequisites
    :
    • The twistcli tool should exist on the machine.
    • The sandbox machine should have connectivity to Prisma Cloud Compute Console.
    • The machine must be a Linux VM.
    • Docker should be installed on the machine.
    When setting up the VM, follow the guidelines below to make sure potential malware doesn’t exploit your sandbox:
    • Make sure that the kernel is up to date.
    • Make sure that Docker and Runc are up to date.
    • Make sure all the software components on the machine are up to date (to make sure there is no other vulnerable component on the machine).
    • The VM should be as isolated as possible. Run the VM in a dedicated network, separate from production. If other services run alongside the sandbox VM in the same local network, set up firewall rules to ensure the sandbox VM cannot reach them.
    • If the VM runs in the cloud, it shouldn’t run with any service account.
    It is recommended to avoid running a Defender on the same machine used as the sandbox VM. Running a Defender on this machine might cause the image that is being analyzed in the sandbox to also be presented under
    Monitor > Vulnerabilities/Compliance > Images > Deployed images
     as an image running in the environment.

    Setup the sandbox user

    Create a dedicated, least-privileged user for running the image analysis sandbox.
    Running the sandbox with a privileged role (Admin, Operator) is a risk in case a malware escapes (by using a zero day, one day, exploit misconfiguration, etc.), and can potentially use this role to take over Prisma.
    1. Create a custom role under
      Manage > Authentication > Roles
       with Write permissions for Container Runtime Results and Read permissions for CI Results. For roles created via the API, also add Write permission for User.
    2. Create a sandbox user and assign it with the new custom role you created.
    3. When triggering the sandbox analysis via twistcli, use the sandbox user credentials. It is recommended to use a short-lived token (available under
      Manage > System > Utilities
      ) rather then a username and password.

    Running the sandbox command

    Description

    Triggering a sandbox analysis is done by executing the twistcli sandbox command on an image. After the command is triggered, Prisma Cloud’s sandbox mechanism runs the container, and starts tracing its behaviour. The events occuring on the running container are collected, and are later being analyzed to discover suspicious behaviours.

    Synopsis

    The usage of the twistcli sandbox command is very similar to running a container image using docker:
    $ twistcli sandbox [OPTIONS] IMAGE [COMMAND] [ARG...]
    For example:
    $ twistcli sandbox --address https://<console-address>:8083 --token 'your-api-token' --analysis-duration 2m -v "$PWD":/app python:3 python3 /app/server.py
    To specify an image to scan, use either the image ID, or repository name and tag. The image should be present on the sandbox machine, having either been built or pulled there. If a repository is specified without a tag, twistcli looks for an image tagged latest.
    The entrypoint and arguments should be specified after the image. If an entrypoint isn’t specified, the default entrypoint of the image will be used.

    Options

    • Complete URL for Console, including the protocol and port. Only the HTTPS protocol is supported. By default, Console listens to HTTPS on port 8083, although your administrator can configure Console to listen on a different port. Defaults to https://127.0.0.1:8083.
      Example: --address https://console.example.com:8083