Chainguard Container for falco-fips

Chainguard Containers are regularly-updated, secure-by-default container images.

Download this Container Image

For those with access, this container image is available on cgr.dev:

docker pull cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/falco-fips:latest

Be sure to replace the ORGANIZATION placeholder with the name used for your organization's private repository within the Chainguard Registry.

Compatibility Notes

The falco-fips image is based on the upstream Falco project with FIPS 140-3 compliance features:

• FIPS 140-3 validated cryptographic modules for federal compliance requirements
• Uses eBPF (modern-bpf driver) instead of traditional kernel modules for system call monitoring
• Does not require loading separate kernel modules, making it more portable across different environments
• Built on Chainguard OS with FIPS-validated cryptographic libraries
• Includes the modern-bpf driver bundled within the image
• No shell or package manager included (distroless design)

This variant is specifically designed for environments requiring FIPS compliance, such as government and regulated industries.

Falco does not run on macOS. For local testing, use a Linux VM or pass the --nodriver argument (though this will not collect any security events).

FIPS mode enforces stricter cryptographic standards, which may impact performance compared to the standard falco image.

Prerequisites

• Linux environment with kernel version 4.14 or later
• Privileged container access for eBPF functionality
• FIPS-compliant environment for full validation

Getting Started

The falco-fips image provides real-time security monitoring with FIPS 140-3 cryptographic compliance. Usage is identical to the standard Falco image:

Docker

Run Falco with eBPF for container and host monitoring:

docker run --rm -i -t \
    --privileged \
    -v /var/run/docker.sock:/host/var/run/docker.sock \
    -v /proc:/host/proc:ro \
    cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/falco-fips:latest falco --modern-bpf

For testing without drivers (limited functionality):

docker run --rm -i -t \
    cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/falco-fips:latest falco --nodriver

Kubernetes with Helm

Deploy Falco in Kubernetes using the official Helm chart. First, create a values file:

cat > falco-fips-values.yaml <<EOF
image:
  registry: cgr.dev
  repository: ORGANIZATION/falco-fips
  tag: latest

driver:
  kind: modern-bpf

falcoctl:
  image:
    registry: cgr.dev
    repository: ORGANIZATION/falcoctl-fips
    tag: latest

# FIPS-specific configuration
env:
  - name: FIPS_MODE
    value: "1"

# Optional: customize rules for compliance monitoring
rulesFiles:
  - /etc/falco/falco_rules.yaml
  - /etc/falco/k8s_audit_rules.yaml
EOF

Install the chart:

helm repo add falcosecurity https://falcosecurity.github.io/charts
helm repo update

helm install falco-fips falcosecurity/falco \
  --namespace falco \
  --create-namespace \
  --values falco-fips-values.yaml

Configuration

FIPS-compliant Falco configuration follows the same patterns as the standard image:

FIPS Verification

Verify FIPS mode is enabled:

docker run --rm cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/falco-fips:latest \
  sh -c "cat /proc/sys/crypto/fips_enabled"

Custom Rules for Compliance

Create security rules focused on compliance monitoring:

cat > compliance-rules.yaml <<EOF
- rule: Unauthorized Cryptographic Operations
  desc: Detect non-FIPS cryptographic operations
  condition: >
    spawned_process and
    (proc.name in (openssl, gpg) and
     not proc.args contains "fips")
  output: >
    Non-FIPS cryptographic operation detected
    (command=%proc.cmdline user=%user.name)
  priority: HIGH

- rule: FIPS Module Tampering
  desc: Detect attempts to modify FIPS modules
  condition: >
    open_write and
    fd.directory in (/usr/lib/ssl, /etc/ssl)
  output: >
    Potential FIPS module tampering detected
    (file=%fd.name command=%proc.cmdline)
  priority: CRITICAL
EOF

docker run --rm -i -t \
    --privileged \
    -v $(pwd)/compliance-rules.yaml:/etc/falco/compliance-rules.yaml \
    -v /var/run/docker.sock:/host/var/run/docker.sock \
    -v /proc:/host/proc:ro \
    cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/falco-fips:latest falco --modern-bpf

Documentation and Resources

• Falco Official Documentation
• FIPS 140-3 Compliance Guide
• Falco Rules Documentation
• Falco Helm Chart
• eBPF Driver Documentation

What are Chainguard Containers?

Chainguard's free tier of Starter container images are built with Wolfi, our minimal Linux undistro.

All other Chainguard Containers are built with Chainguard OS, Chainguard's minimal Linux operating system designed to produce container images that meet the requirements of a more secure software supply chain.

The main features of Chainguard Containers include:

• Minimal design, without unnecessary software bloat
• Daily builds to ensure container images are up-to-date with available security patches
• High quality build-time SBOMs attesting to the provenance of all artifacts within the image
• Verifiable signatures provided by Sigstore
• Reproducible builds with Cosign and apko (read more about reproducibility)

For cases where you need container images with shells and package managers to build or debug, most Chainguard Containers come paired with a development, or -dev, variant.

In all other cases, including Chainguard Containers tagged as :latest or with a specific version number, the container images include only an open-source application and its runtime dependencies. These minimal container images typically do not contain a shell or package manager.

Although the -dev container image variants have similar security features as their more minimal versions, they include additional software that is typically not necessary in production environments. We recommend using multi-stage builds to copy artifacts from the -dev variant into a more minimal production image.

Need additional packages?

To improve security, Chainguard Containers include only essential dependencies. Need more packages? Chainguard customers can use Custom Assembly to add packages, either through the Console, chainctl, or API.

To use Custom Assembly in the Chainguard Console: navigate to the image you'd like to customize in your Organization's list of images, and click on the Customize image button at the top of the page.

Learn More

Refer to our Chainguard Containers documentation on Chainguard Academy. Chainguard also offers VMs and Libraries — contact us for access.

Trademarks

This software listing is packaged by Chainguard. The trademarks set forth in this offering are owned by their respective companies, and use of them does not imply any affiliation, sponsorship, or endorsement by such companies.