Cloudera Partners with Chainguard to Raise the Bar for Enterprise Data Security 

Cloudera, a company that brings AI to data anywhere, is partnering with Chainguard, the trusted source for open source—making Cloudera one of the first enterprise data platforms to deeply integrate a “secure-by-default” and “shift left security” philosophy at the container image level.

“By integrating Chainguard into our existing data platform, Cloudera is moving beyond traditional security models and drastically reducing vulnerabilities and providing a secure enterprise data and AI platform to customers,” said Katie Boswell, VP, product security and technical programs at Cloudera. “This partnership is more than a technology integration; it is a foundational strategic shift that embeds a ‘secure-by-default’ philosophy at the core of our offering.”

According to the companies, this collaboration sets a new industry benchmark for integrity and trust by tackling vulnerabilities at their source and enabling Cloudera to meet the escalating demands of highly regulated sectors and security-conscious organizations.

By leveraging Chainguard’s minimal, hardened container images, Cloudera delivers a foundational data and AI platform with significantly reduced known vulnerabilities: critical for organizations that must adhere to stringent compliance and governance requirements, the companies said.

This secure-by-default foundation also simplified Cloudera for Government authorizations at FedRAMP Moderate, DoD CC SRG IL-2, GovRAMP Moderate, and TX-RAMP Level 2, while supporting continuous monitoring (ConMon) processes.

For customers utilizing hybrid deployments, including the Cloudera On Premises Data Services 1.5.5 release, it ensures a consistent, hardened security posture across both cloud and on-premises environments.

As a result, regulated sectors, such as financial services, insurance, healthcare, and government agencies, can innovate with data analytics and AI while satisfying rigorous Authority to Operate (ATO) and ConMon security program requirements designed to protect sensitive information, the vendors said.

This collaboration also simplifies the processes of hardening to Center for Internet Security (CIS) Benchmarks (including Level 2 standards), Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS—including 140 validated cryptography standards), and Security Technical Implementation Guides (STIGS), combined with a kernel-independent design.

“Our collaboration with Cloudera brings the power of secure software supply chains to one of the most trusted data and AI platforms in the world,” said Matt Moore, co-founder and chief technology officer at Chainguard. “By integrating Chainguard’s secure-by-default container images into Cloudera’s data platform, organizations can confidently build and run data-intensive workloads with reduced risk and higher compliance assurance. Together, we’re helping customers innovate faster and more securely, without compromising performance or agility.”

For more information about this partnership, visit www.cloudera.com or www.chainguard.dev.