securing-container-registry-with-harbor

name	securing-container-registry-with-harbor
description	Configures the Harbor open-source container registry's security features — integrated Trivy vulnerability scanning, Notary/Cosign image signing and content trust policies, project-level RBAC, immutable tag retention rules, and OIDC authentication — to enforce image provenance and block vulnerable image deployment. Use when deploying or hardening a Harbor registry, or when access control and compliance requirements call for signed, scanned images.
domain	cybersecurity
subdomain	container-security
tags	["containers","kubernetes","docker","security","registry","harbor"]
version	1.0
author	mahipal
license	Apache-2.0
nist_csf	["PR.PS-01","PR.IR-01","ID.AM-08","DE.CM-01"]
mitre_attack	["T1610","T1611","T1609","T1525","T1190"]

Securing Container Registry with Harbor

Overview

Harbor is an open-source container registry that provides security features including vulnerability scanning (integrated Trivy), image signing (Notary/Cosign), RBAC, content trust policies, replication, and audit logging. Securing Harbor involves configuring these features to enforce image provenance, prevent vulnerable image deployment, and maintain registry access control.

When to Use

• When deploying or configuring securing container registry with harbor capabilities in your environment
• When establishing security controls aligned to compliance requirements
• When building or improving security architecture for this domain
• When conducting security assessments that require this implementation

Prerequisites

• Harbor 2.10+ installed (Helm or Docker Compose)
• TLS certificates for HTTPS
• Trivy scanner integration
• OIDC/LDAP for authentication
• Kubernetes cluster (for deployment target)

Workflow

Step 1: Install Harbor with Security Configuration

# harbor-values.yaml for Helm deployment
expose:
  type: ingress
  tls:
    enabled: true
    certSource: secret
    secret:
      secretName: harbor-tls
      notarySecretName: harbor-tls
  ingress:
    hosts:
      core: harbor.example.com
      notary: notary.example.com

externalURL: https://harbor.example.com

persistence:
  enabled: true
  resourcePolicy: "keep"

harborAdminPassword: "<strong-password>"

trivy: