Every time you search for something on Google, hail an Uber or log into a bank account, your personal data likely flow behind the scenes through a series of separate, freestanding packages of software known as containers. Although invisible to the user, this method has become the dominant way to code apps today. Programmers like it because it allows them to change one feature without breaking their colleagues’ work, and it helps software run more efficiently, saving companies money.
But the process is also giving hackers lots of new ways to steal people’s information. Instead of a user’s data going directly to one place, they can jump between dozens of containers for a single action. Hackers only need to gain access to one. Because of the way most containers are designed, they’re black boxes on a network. Administrators may have no idea what’s happening inside of them.