Kubernetes Security Audit

Kubernetes Security Audit

Audit a cluster across four layers: workload, identity, network, supply chain.

Workload Security

• Pod Security Standards: check namespace labels (pod-security.kubernetes.io/enforce)
• Privileged pods, hostPID/hostNetwork/hostPath usage — each needs justification
• Containers running as root; allowPrivilegeEscalation: true; missing readOnlyRootFilesystem
• securityContext set at pod and container level; capabilities dropped to minimum set

RBAC

• Enumerate bindings; find cluster-admin subjects — minimize to a named list
• Escalation paths: bind/escalate/impersonate verbs; create pods + node privileged, create pods/exec
• Service accounts: default SA used by workloads? token automount disabled where unneeded?
• Check for wildcard (*) verbs/resources in custom roles

Network

• NetworkPolicy: default-deny ingress/egress per namespace as the baseline
• Cross-namespace exposure: which namespaces can reach kube-system, ingress controllers, databases
• Control plane exposure: API server on public IP? etcd reachable/authenticated?

Supply Chain

• Image provenance: registry digests pinned (not :latest), signature verification (cosign)
• Admission control: image policy, no privileged images from untrusted registries
• Secrets: Kubernetes Secrets at rest (KMS encryption configured), not baked into images or env in manifests committed to git

Quick Checks

kubectl get pods -A -o json | jq '[.items[] | select(.spec.containers[].securityContext.privileged==true)]'
kubectl get ns -l pod-security.kubernetes.io/enforce
kubectl auth can-i --list --as=system:serviceaccount:default:default
kubectl get networkpolicy -A

Output

Findings per layer with YAML evidence, risk, and hardening manifests for remediation.