ContMTD : live migration optimization for containers in moving target defense

In the rapidly evolving landscape of cloud computing and its deep integration into future networks like 6G, the demand for improved security measures is growing. One promising method to evade and react to cyber threats is Moving Target Defense (MTD). MTD consists of dynamically altering system attributes to increase uncertainty for attackers, reduce their attack window, and raise the cost of attacks. Among various MTD strategies, live migration (LiMi) of containers has emerged as a prominent method due to its improving efficiency and widespread adoption. This paper introduces ContMTD, a novel container-based MTD framework designed to proactively protect stateful microservices in cloud environments. ContMTD optimizes LiMi for multi-container applications, achieving an average downtime reduction of 42% compared to a State-of-the-art (SOTA) solution, with superior performance 95% of the time. Evaluation results show that ContMTD’s proactive measures significantly reduce the success probability of stealthy malware attacks and mitigate the effects of side-channel exfiltration threats, achieving 5-10% better results than the state-of-the-art approach.