# Cis K8S V200 5.2.10

> Minimize the admission of Windows HostProcess Containers (Manual)

- Skill: `cyberstrikeus/cis-k8s-v200-5-2-10` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add cyberstrikeus/cis-k8s-v200-5-2-10`
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- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: DevOps & Infra
- Author: cyberstrikeus (https://skillmd.com/u/cyberstrikeus)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/cyberstrikeus/cis-k8s-v200-5-2-10

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# 5.2.10 Minimize the admission of Windows HostProcess Containers (Manual)

## Profile Applicability

- Level 1 - Master Node

## Description

Do not generally permit Windows containers to be run with the `hostProcess` flag set to true.

## Rationale

A Windows container making use of the `hostProcess` flag can interact with the underlying Windows cluster node. As per the Kubernetes documentation, this provides "privileged access" to the Windows node.

Where Windows containers are used inside a Kubernetes cluster, there should be at least one admission control policy which does not permit `hostProcess` Windows containers.

If you need to run Windows containers which require `hostProcess`, this should be defined in a separate policy and you should carefully check to ensure that only limited service accounts and users are given permission to use that policy.

## Impact

Pods defined with `securityContext.windowsOptions.hostProcess: true` will not be permitted unless they are run under a specific policy.

## Audit

List the policies in use for each namespace in the cluster, ensure that each policy disallows the admission of `hostProcess` containers.

## Remediation

Add policies to each namespace in the cluster which has user workloads to restrict the admission of `hostProcess` containers.

## Default Value

By default, there are no restrictions on the creation of `hostProcess` containers.

## References

1. https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/configure-pod-container/create-hostprocess-pod/
2. https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/security/pod-security-standards/