cilium-fips

What is Cilium FIPS?

The Cilium images package Cilium, a CNCF graduated project that uses eBPF in the Linux kernel to provide networking, security, and observability for Kubernetes. The cilium agent runs on every node as the CNI plugin, replacing kube-proxy if desired and enforcing identity-aware network policies at layers 3 through 7, while the operator manages cluster-wide tasks. Related images include Hubble for flow observability, the Envoy-based service mesh components, and cluster mesh for multi-cluster connectivity. Cilium is used by platform and security teams that need high-performance pod networking, encryption with WireGuard or IPsec, and fine-grained network policy.

The Cilium FIPS image is Echo's FIPS variant of Cilium: the same CNI and network security agent, built to run on FIPS 140-3 validated cryptography. It is designed for organizations that sell to or operate for the US government — FedRAMP-authorized services, federal contractors, and regulated industries — where a CNI and network security agent that runs privileged on every node and controls how all pod traffic is routed and filtered must use cryptographic modules with an active NIST CMVP certificate, not merely FIPS-enabled libraries.

What is Echo's Cilium FIPS image?

Echo's Cilium FIPS image is a hardened, FIPS-validated build of Cilium on Echo's hardened base. Because Cilium is written in Go, its cryptography is handled by a CMVP-validated Go crypto module such as BoringCrypto rather than by OpenSSL; Echo supports OpenSSL, BoringCrypto, and Bouncy Castle across its FIPS images. Echo images are designed to be a drop-in replacement: swap the image reference in your Dockerfile or deployment manifest for the cilium-fips image and CVEs go to zero without disrupting your CiliumNetworkPolicy resources, CNI configuration, kube-proxy replacement settings, and Hubble. Every image is tested across clouds, image use cases, and deployment targets. Echo ships every image in two variants:

• Distroless variant — optimized for runtime use, with the smallest possible attack surface
• Default variant — includes essential build tools, package managers, and shells for teams that need operational access

For production Cilium deployments, the distroless variant keeps all runtime operations — packet processing, policy enforcement, load balancing, identity management, and flow observability — fully intact while minimizing exposure; the default variant suits platform and security teams that need shell access for debugging connectivity, running cilium CLI commands, or inspecting eBPF maps.

What is the difference between Echo's Cilium FIPS image and the public Cilium image?

Public Cilium images ship on general-purpose bases whose cryptographic libraries have not been validated under FIPS 140-3, and FIPS-enabled is not the same as FIPS-validated — auditors for FedRAMP and other federal frameworks flag the gap. Those bases also include OS-level tooling convenient for development but which contribute CVEs that accumulate on a CNI and network security agent used in production. Cilium images run continuously with access to pod traffic, network policy, node-level privileges, and encryption keys. OS-level CVEs in the base image — particularly in libraries such as openssl, zlib, and libc, along with iptables and BPF tooling dependencies — create exploitable paths that bypass application-layer controls entirely, allowing attackers to move from a network-reachable service to host-level access. For teams running Cilium across many environments, the image is also a steady source of scanner noise in the CI pipeline — every package in the base becomes a finding your security team must triage, even when none of it is reachable from the service. Echo's FIPS build retains everything Cilium needs for packet processing, policy enforcement, load balancing, identity management, and flow observability while routing cryptography through a validated module and removing the packages that don't belong in a production Cilium CNI and network security agent. As we covered in our post on how to protect your company from software supply chain attacks, long-running services that hold sensitive data and listen on the network are among the widest attack surfaces in the container stack. Echo commits to a 7-day SLA for critical and high severity vulnerabilities, and 10 days for medium, low, and unknown — with vulnerabilities triaged within 24 hours. Echo FIPS images are STIG-hardened, ship with SBOMs in SPDX and CycloneDX formats and signed provenance, and are recognized by all major scanners and mirrored to all major registries, so they fit into existing pipelines without changing your registry, scanner, or runtime tooling.

FAQ

Can I replace my Cilium image with Echo's Cilium FIPS image?

Yes. Echo's Cilium FIPS image is a drop-in replacement. Update the FROM line in your Dockerfile to the cilium-fips image and your workloads keep running. CNI configuration, network policies, Hubble observability, kube-proxy replacement, and encryption settings all continue to work without changes to your cluster manifests or policies. Because FIPS mode disallows non-approved algorithms, anything that depends on legacy ciphers or hashes such as MD5-based signatures needs to move to approved algorithms.

Is Echo's Cilium FIPS image FIPS-validated?

Yes. Echo's FIPS images use CMVP-validated cryptographic modules, operating in a configuration consistent with the module's FIPS 140-3 security policy. Because Cilium is written in Go, its cryptography is handled by a CMVP-validated Go crypto module such as BoringCrypto rather than by OpenSSL; Echo supports OpenSSL, BoringCrypto, and Bouncy Castle across its FIPS images. That makes the image fit for federal use — unlike FIPS-enabled or FIPS-compliant images whose cryptographic libraries have never been validated. This matters for teams running Cilium inside FedRAMP boundaries, where a CNI and network security agent that runs privileged on every node and controls how all pod traffic is routed and filtered must meet cryptographic requirements across the full stack. Echo also provides a FIPS runtime tester that executes approved and unapproved algorithms to show how the image behaves at runtime.

What is Echo's vulnerability management SLA on the Cilium FIPS image?

Echo commits to a 7-day SLA for critical and high severity vulnerabilities, and 10 days for medium, low, and unknown — with vulnerabilities triaged within 24 hours. Patches are mirrored automatically into your private registry so you're always running a clean version — critical for a long-running service that holds pod traffic, network policy, node-level privileges, and encryption keys and is reachable over the network.

Is Echo's Cilium FIPS image distroless?

Echo ships every image in two variants: a distroless variant optimized for runtime use, and a default variant that includes essential build tools, package managers, and shells. For production Cilium deployments, the distroless variant is the leaner, more secure choice; for platform and security teams that need shell access for debugging connectivity, running cilium CLI commands, or inspecting eBPF maps, the default variant is the right fit.

How does Echo achieve such a drastic CVE reduction in Cilium?

Echo's Cilium FIPS image is built from source with only the absolute essentials needed to run the Cilium CNI and network security agent, which significantly shrinks the attack surface. Echo also patches aggressively over time, with backports available so you can stay on the Cilium version your applications and their dependencies are certified against — avoiding a disruptive upgrade forced purely by OS-level vulnerabilities in the base image rather than by your own requirements.

Will Echo's Cilium FIPS image help us achieve FedRAMP?

Yes. The hard parts of FedRAMP — managing vulnerabilities, applying fixes, and using FIPS-validated cryptography — are baked into Echo images, including STIG-hardened configuration and ConMon/POA&M-ready reporting. For platform and security teams running Cilium under an ATO — whether that's cluster networking inside an authorization boundary, zero-trust network policy, or encrypted pod traffic — Echo's FIPS-validated Cilium image keeps the CNI and network security agent layer in-boundary and compliant without requiring custom hardening scripts or manual base image patching between compliance cycles.

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