# Day 7 — Patch & Tool Maintenance (Deeper into the Forest)

#docker #kubernetes #security #adventofcode

The roofs of Oberried vanish behind them as the path climbs. Here, the forest grows older—trunks thicker, branches tangled like a refactor that no one dared to finish. Sunlight slips through in thin, reluctant stripes.

Gord stops beside a fallen spruce and draws her sword.

With slow, deliberate movements, she sharpens the blade. Each stroke rings softly, the forest seeming to listen.

Rothütle glances around.

"Do you really expect trouble this soon?"

"We're closing on Jack's domain," she replies without looking up. "It doesn't hurt to be prepared."

He forces a small breath through his nose. "I thought we were going to talk to him. You hired me to translate after all."

"It's not Jack who worries me," she added, putting the sharpening stone away. "Let's move."

"I thought you would give me a hint on what worries you," Rothütle presses. Gord kept walking.

They move on together, leaving the last familiar clearing behind. Soon, there was a sound like distant footsteps among the trees...

Tip of the day: Keep your tools updated to avoid surprises in critical moments.

Security Tip #7: Patch & Maintain Your Tools

Gord sharpens her sword before danger appears.

In DevSecOps, outdated tools and dependencies fail exactly when pressure spikes.

Outdated components cause:

silent breakage under stress,
failures at the worst moment,
known vulnerabilities waiting to be exploited.

Before entering any “deep forest” in production:

One of the most important practices in container security is keeping images and dependencies up to date. It usually happens on projects that are actively maintained, but less often in legacy systems or the basic infrastructure layers, e.g. a base image you built months ago and keep reusing.

Update dependencies and base images regularly.
Remove deprecated libs and stale packages.
Patch known CVEs quickly.
Automate recurring maintenance tasks.

Example: Version Parameters in Dockerfiles

Rebuild images frequently to incorporate the latest patches. Use build arguments to manage base image versions easily:

ARG BASE_IMAGE_VERSION=3.13-slim
FROM python:${BASE_IMAGE_VERSION}

Lock the dependencies in your application and check them regularly for vulnerabilities.
Use tools like Dependabot, Renovate, or Snyk to automate dependency updates and vulnerability scanning.