An organization is refactoring several customer-facing applications into microservices that will run on the same Linux host. The security architect proposes deploying each microservice in its own container instead of separate virtual machines. From a security perspective, what is the main advantage this approach provides?
It guarantees protection against zero-day exploits in application code.
It removes the need to apply patches to the underlying host operating system.
It isolates each microservice's processes and resources, limiting the blast radius of a compromise.
It automatically scales the microservices horizontally without additional configuration.
Containers use operating-system-level virtualization (namespaces, cgroups, silos) to confine each application's processes and resources. If one container is compromised, the attacker's access is typically limited to that container, reducing the blast radius. Host patching, zero-day immunity, and automatic horizontal scaling are not inherent guarantees of containerization.
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