Systems and methods for container orchestration security employ one or more processors that separate a lifecycle of one or more containers into a plurality of predefined container image lifecycle phases; segregates control of the plurality of predefined container image lifecycle phases into a plurality of control environments separately controlled by different enterprise control components isolated from one another. In addition, one or more external processors may generate one or more certificates that are based on the platform, state attributes and meta data for interaction of the container with one or more external nodes. The one or more processors may also control the promotion, update and deletion of container images between the plurality of lifecycle phases and registries in different control environments as well as between the enterprise registries and the plurality of other registries that are part of multiple external clouds.