nginx-fips

What is NGINX FIPS?

NGINX is a high-performance web server, reverse proxy, and load balancer. It serves static content, terminates TLS, and proxies traffic to application backends, and it is among the most widely deployed web servers on the internet.

The NGINX FIPS image is Echo's FIPS variant of NGINX: the same web server and reverse proxy, 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 web server and reverse proxy that terminates TLS for inbound traffic must use cryptographic modules with an active NIST CMVP certificate, not merely FIPS-enabled libraries.

What is Echo's NGINX FIPS image?

Echo's NGINX FIPS image is a hardened, FIPS-validated build of NGINX on Echo's hardened base. Cryptography on this image is routed through the Echo FIPS Provider for OpenSSL, a software module validated under FIPS 140-3 (NIST CMVP certificate #5560, Level 1, active). Echo images are designed to be a drop-in replacement: swap the image reference in your Dockerfile or deployment manifest for the nginx-fips image and CVEs go to zero without disrupting your configuration, data volumes, and the clients that connect to it. 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 NGINX deployments, the distroless variant keeps all runtime operations — static file serving, reverse proxying, load balancing, and TLS termination — fully intact while minimizing exposure; the default variant suits web operators and platform teams that need shell access for testing configuration, inspecting logs, or running nginx -t.

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

Public NGINX 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 web server and reverse proxy used in production. NGINX images run continuously with access to TLS private keys and every request to the applications behind it. OS-level CVEs in the base image — particularly in libraries such as openssl, zlib, and libc — 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 NGINX 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 NGINX needs for static file serving, reverse proxying, load balancing, and TLS termination while routing cryptography through a validated module and removing the packages that don't belong in a production NGINX web server and reverse proxy. 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 NGINX image with Echo's NGINX FIPS image?

Yes. Echo's NGINX FIPS image is a drop-in replacement. Update the FROM line in your Dockerfile to the nginx-fips image and your workloads keep running. Configuration, data volumes, mounted secrets, and existing client connections all continue to work without changes. 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 NGINX 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. Cryptography on this image is routed through the Echo FIPS Provider for OpenSSL, a software module validated under FIPS 140-3 (NIST CMVP certificate #5560, Level 1, active). 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 NGINX inside FedRAMP boundaries, where a web server and reverse proxy that terminates TLS for inbound traffic 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 NGINX 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 TLS private keys and every request to the applications behind it and is reachable over the network.

Is Echo's NGINX 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 NGINX deployments, the distroless variant is the leaner, more secure choice; for web operators and platform teams that need shell access for testing configuration, inspecting logs, or running nginx -t, the default variant is the right fit.

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

Echo's NGINX FIPS image is built from source with only the absolute essentials needed to run the NGINX web server and reverse proxy, which significantly shrinks the attack surface. Echo also patches aggressively over time, with backports available so you can stay on the NGINX 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 NGINX 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 federal agencies, contractors, and FedRAMP-authorized providers running NGINX under an ATO — whether that's a FedRAMP-authorized SaaS boundary, a DoD enclave, or an agency-operated platform — Echo's FIPS-validated NGINX image keeps the web server and reverse proxy layer in-boundary and compliant without requiring custom hardening scripts or manual base image patching between compliance cycles.

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