Adversaries may build a container image directly on a host to bypass defenses that monitor for the retrieval of malicious images from a public registry. A remote build request may be sent to the Docker API that includes a Dockerfile that pulls a vanilla base image, such as alpine, from a public or local registry and then builds a custom image upon it.^[1]

An adversary may take advantage of that build API to build a custom image on the host that includes malware downloaded from their C2 server, and then they may utilize Deploy Container using that custom image.^[2],[3] If the base image is pulled from a public registry, defenses will likely not detect the image as malicious since it’s a vanilla image. If the base image already resides in a local registry, the pull may be considered even less suspicious since the image is already in the environment.

References

1. Docker. ( null). Docker Engine API v1.41 Reference - Build an Image. Retrieved March 30, 2021.
2. Assaf Morag. (2020, July 15). Threat Alert: Attackers Building Malicious Images on Your Hosts. Retrieved March 29, 2021.
3. Team Nautilus. (2021, June). Attacks in the Wild on the Container Supply Chain and Infrastructure. Retrieved October 7, 2026.

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