Meet Illumio’s New Agentless Container Security

You can’t stop every breach. But you can stop them from spreading.

Breach containment is the name of the game in today’s cybersecurity world. But when it comes to Kubernetes, that’s easier said than done.  

Containers pop up and disappear in seconds. They’re built to move fast and scale even faster — awesome for developers, a headache for security.

Traditional, agent-based tools can’t keep up. They’re too slow, too heavy, and leave too many blind spots.

That’s why we’re adding agentless container security to the Illumio platform — built to secure your Kubernetes environments without slowing them down.

Agentless Kubernetes security that doesn’t slow you down

Modern attacks are fast, quiet, and built to blend into dynamic environments. And in Kubernetes, they take advantage of exactly what makes containers great: speed, scale, and agility.

To stop lateral movement, your security needs to move just as fast, working in the background to spot threats, contain them, and keep operations running smoothly.

That’s exactly what Illumio delivers for container security.

Illumio’s new agentless container security solution delivers deep, real-time visibility into Kubernetes workloads without using in-container agents or sidecars.

With the new solution, you can:

• Visualize intra-cluster traffic between pods, services, and namespaces  ‍
• Detect lateral movement risks and unauthorized communication paths  ‍
• Enforce segmentation policies to contain potential breaches  

All without agents. No developer friction. No pipeline disruption.

Works wherever your container does

Illumio's agentless container security is designed to run across any Kubernetes environment, including:

• Managed services like Amazon EKS (with support for Azure AKS and Google GKE coming soon) ‍
• Enterprise platforms like Red Hat OpenShift ‍
• Self-managed or on-premises Kubernetes clusters

No matter where you run Kubernetes, you get the same strong protection without changing your tools or how you work.

Full Kubernetes visibility, inside and out

Kubernetes environments can be complicated. They’re ever-changing and distributed across environments. and are spread out across many places.

To keep them secure, you need a clear view of what’s happening — both inside and outside your clusters.

Illumio now gives you that full view. With agentless visibility across your cloud setup — and our new agentless container security for Kubernetes — you can see everything from every angle:

• Inside the cluster: pod-to-pod, service-to-service, and namespace-aware traffic ‍
• Outside the cluster: ingress/egress flows, cloud access, and external dependencies ‍
• Across environments: cross-cluster traffic, shared services, and unmanaged workloads

With this 360-degree visibility, you can spot risks, block threats, and stay secure — all without using agents or slowing things down.

How it works: native Kubernetes and CNI integration  

Illumio’s agentless container security connects directly to the Kubernetes control plane, cloud APIs, and CNI telemetry to monitor container traffic and enforce segmentation policy.

Here’s how it works:

• Kubernetes API pulls in pod metadata, labels, namespaces, and service maps for full context ‍
• Cloud-native APIs extends visibility beyond the cluster to cloud infrastructure and services ‍
• CNI plugin integration (like Cilium, Falco, Amazon VPC) taps into low-level network traffic for granular telemetry

By integrating where Kubernetes already operates, we give you real-time visibility and control without touching the workloads themselves. You can detect risk, stop lateral movement, and enforce Zero Trust policies at scale.

Smarter container security starts with Illumio

These days, it’s not enough to just watch what’s happening in your network. You need to contain threats quickly before they spread.

That’s where agentless container security helps. It protects your Kubernetes environments without slowing anything down or getting in the way of your developers.

You get the visibility and control you need to lower risk, block threats, and keep your important systems safe, all without adding extra software inside your containers.

The Illumio platform already helps organizations contain breaches in cloud workloads and virtual machines. Now, we’re bringing that same protection to Kubernetes — with no agents needed.

Ready to learn more? Contact us today to see Illumio’s agentless container security in action.