Learn more about Kubernetes Privilege Escalation attacks from our experts. Our Kubernetes Support team is here to help you with your questions and concerns.

Kubernetes Privilege Escalation | An Introduction

Kubernetes Privilege Escalation refers to a security vulnerability or attack scenario where an unauthorized user gains elevated privileges within a Kubernetes cluster.

Furthermore, Privilege escalation allows an attacker to gain unauthorized access. It also lets them control resources within the cluster. This leads to further compromise of the cluster’s security.

Today, we are going to look at the top Kubernetes privilege escalation attack scenarios and how they can be carried out.

Top Kubernetes Privilege Escalation Attack Scenarios

1. Group Impersonation

   This involves impersonating a privileged group with higher permissions to get higher privileges in the cluster. Here, the attacker gains administrative access.
2. Steal Admin Secret After Listing All Secrets

   In Kubernetes, listing all secrets allows us to obtain any service account token in the cluster. This includes access to the system components with the highest privileges in the cluster.
3. Obtain Secrets As A Role In Kube-System Namespace

   We may obtain any service account token in the kube-system namespace by listing all secrets in that namespace. The majority of them are system components with the most rights in the cluster. This may lead to a Kubernetes privilege escalation.
4. Create A ‘cluster-role’ Role Binding

   Here, the privilege escalation occurs by creating a role binding to the cluster-admin cluster role. In other words, the attacker can acquire administrative access to the cluster by making a new binding to the cluster-admin cluster role.
5. Container With SYS_ADMIN Capability And Admin Pod Running On Same Node

   The admin pod’s secret can be stolen by accessing its file system from the host while running with SYS_ADMIN capabilities on the same node.

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Conclusion

To conclude, our Support Techs gave us a quick look at different Privilege Escalation scenarios.