Improving the Security of Containerized Workloads using Transparency and Traceability Services

Computer Science > Cryptography and Security [Submitted on 1 Aug 2026] Improving the Security of Containerized Workloads using Transparency and Traceability Services Nikos Fotiou, Lefteris Georgiadis, Ignacio Lacalle, George C. Polyzos, Vasilios A. Siris Containerized workloads are commonly built via CI/CD pipelines, stored in registries, and executed across heterogeneous infrastructures, including cloud and edge environments. A single compromised build step or credential can turn routine automation into large-scale distribution of malicious artifacts, motivating integrity, transparency, and enforceable deployment-time checks. In this paper, we present an architecture for verifiable container image distribution that addresses key-management challenges and enables policy-enforced admission-time verification. A transparency service generates one-time signing keys bound to authenticated identities, records signing events in an append-only transparency registry, and returns cryptographically verifiable proofs of inclusion. These proofs and identity attributes are attached to image metadata and evaluated by policy-as-code at admission time, so only compliant artifacts are deployed. We implement a proof-of-concept integrated with GitHub Actions and GitLab Runners and evaluate how the resulting pipeline mitigates common supply-chain attacks under a realistic threat model. Comments: in IEEE CSR 2026 Subjects: Cryptography and Security (cs.CR) Cite as: arXiv:2608.00660 [cs.CR]   (or arXiv:2608.00660v1 [cs.CR] for this version)   https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2608.00660 Focus to learn more Submission history From: Nikos Fotiou [view email] [v1] Sat, 1 Aug 2026 13:25:44 UTC (109 KB) Access Paper: HTML (experimental) view license Current browse context: cs.CR < prev   |   next > new | recent | 2026-08 Change to browse by: cs References & Citations NASA ADS Google Scholar Semantic Scholar Export BibTeX Citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Demos Related Papers About arXivLabs Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)