The transition to container-first infrastructure is complete, with microservices now powering production-critical workloads and driving digital innovation for most enterprises. While 100% of DevSecOps leaders view containerization as critical to their production strategy, this shift has been accompanied by a crisis in security frameworks. According to the ActiveState 2026 State of Vulnerability Management & Remediation Report, respondents’ organizations faced a staggering 82% container breach rate over the past year.
Many companies have tried to mitigate risk by “shifting left", empowering developers to build security into their code from the start while still leveraging containers and open-source software from public registries. But in 2026, the reality of shifting left has often meant shifting a mountain of undifferentiated remediation work (i.e., fixing someone else’s code) onto already overextended engineering teams.
How should Security Leaders think about container security, and open source security overall? The answer lies in leveraging secure, trusted open source from dedicated providers who help you start secure and stay secure over time, whether you’re developing with open source libraries or deploying applications via containers. The outcome? A 60-99% reduction in CVEs while reclaiming up to 30% of developer time for delivery and innovation.
The Perception vs. Reality Gap
A striking insight from our analysis is the profound disconnect between the perceived importance of security and the reality of operational risk. Despite the critical nature of these workloads, 87% of survey respondents now expect an annual container-specific security incident to occur. This suggests a move from a posture of prevention to one of "inevitable compromise", where incidents are treated as unavoidable annual events rather than structural failures.
This acceptance of risk is a dangerous gamble. Universal adoption without universal security controls has turned open source and containers into systemic risk multipliers.
The Speed and Maintenance Traps
Modern development velocity has created systemic vulnerabilities. While 77% of organizations theoretically trust curated catalogs, 90% of development teams still pull unverified images and open source packages from public registries. This creates a direct injection of unvetted risk into critical environments.
Furthermore, once images are deployed, they often don't stay secure for long. Like any software, they accumulate vulnerabilities over time. Data shows teams are failing to keep up: 83% of leaders identify outdated base images as the root cause of their most recent vulnerabilities.
Mandate: It's up to leaders to set up a system that prioritizes a culture of development velocity. Ensure sure teams have quick, frictionless access to secure, continually remediated open source packages and images that automatically comply with organizational policy. This makes it a lot less tempting for teams to work around any security rules put in place.
The Compliance Crisis and Visibility Gap
The inability to keep up with CVE remediation has become a primary driver of business risk, with 78% of respondents’ organizations likely failing compliance audits due to unresolved CVEs in their container footprint. This gap is compounded by a lack of deep visibility; over 90% of environments suffer from limited visibility into the deeper layers of container images.
Traditional scanners frequently miss critical vulnerabilities embedded deep within the image filesystem or buried in transitive dependencies. When 70% of containers live for five minutes or less, humans simply cannot secure assets that vanish in 300 seconds.
Mandate: Leaders need to implement solutions that drive down risk via CVE remediation, while being mindful of the toll that takes on developers and devops. External partners who assume responsibility for monitoring and maintaining open source and containers can help DevSecOps teams dramatically reduce their remediation burden while improving their security posture.
Strategic Pivots for Proactive Prevention
A resilient security posture is attainable, but it hinges on security leaders driving three crucial technical evolutions, according to the data.
1. Minimize Risk with Secure, Trusted Open Source: By shifting to curated open source catalogs and hardened container solutions, teams can drastically shrink their attack surface. Hardened images are minimalist by design; they strip away unused components often exploited by attackers—such as shells, package managers, and non-essential libraries. This approach not only secures the environment but also significantly reduces the technical debt associated with patching and maintaining bloated base images.
2. Counter AI Threats with AI Defense: Manual remediation processes can no longer keep pace with the speed at which vulnerabilities are identified and exploited. As adversaries use AI to accelerate attacks, defenders must use it to accelerate solutions. Teams should investigate AI-powered tools to automate vulnerability detection and remediation. Our report data suggests that nearly 95% of DevSecOps leaders expect AI and intelligent remediation to play a critical role in the future of secure software delivery.
3. Offload Undifferentiated Engineering Work: To keep up with evolving compliance standards and the constant stream of CVEs, teams should stop trying to do it all themselves. Consider partnering with vendors to handle the "undifferentiated heavy lifting" of container maintenance, CVE remediation, and policy enforcement. By outsourcing this foundational work, teams can offload the burden of constant remediation, allowing their engineers to focus entirely on building high-value features and innovation.
The Path Forward: Security as a Velocity Multiplier
In 2026, the competitive advantage belongs to the companies that can move fast without breaking their security posture. The data from our latest report is clear: the current manual approach to container security and open source remediation is a primary driver of both breaches and failed audits.
By starting with a secure, trusted source and offloading the burden of remediation, organizations can achieve a 60-99% reduction in CVEs while reclaiming up to 30% of developer time. It’s time to stop asking developers to be security researchers and start giving them a secure foundation to build on.
Ready to see the full data? Download the 2026 State of Vulnerability Management & Remediation: Container Edition Report.
Evan Prowse — Product Marketing Manager at ActiveState https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvmv1txHO1XeYt-qgipDuxuHqzinhd_e5hIXs0QUam6xwb33qADygoy4hTAvXIOneiuivLbVhxe_tiGULGPKE2zyjhfmqDEVbRKStna770j93KMLcBBh30Vk8Ifoyyfz0beXK0dbqyr1Qz0QcZMafC8b-5zq_pm37nu7cN20ZGmD41tKJk_3j8ES2x2P4/s1600/evan.png
