Detect Additional Container Cluster Roles in Elastic Security
An adversary may add additional roles or permissions to an adversary-controlled user or service account to maintain persistent access to a container orchestration system. For example, an adversary with sufficient permissions may create a RoleBinding or ClusterRoleBinding to bind a Role or ClusterRole to a Kubernetes account. Where ABAC is in use, an adversary may modify a Kubernetes ABAC policy to give the target account additional permissions. This technique may also be used in conjunction with cloud-based RBAC assignments in managed Kubernetes services such as GKE, EKS, and AKS.
MITRE ATT&CK
- Tactic
- Persistence Privilege Escalation
- Technique
- T1098 Account Manipulation
- Sub-technique
- T1098.006 Additional Container Cluster Roles
- Canonical reference
- https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1098/006/
Elastic Detection Query
any where event.dataset == "kubernetes.audit"
and kubernetes.audit.verb in ("create", "update", "patch")
and kubernetes.audit.objectRef.resource in ("clusterrolebindings", "rolebindings", "clusterroles", "roles")
and kubernetes.audit.responseStatus.code >= 200
and kubernetes.audit.responseStatus.code < 300
and (
not kubernetes.audit.user.username like "system:*"
or kubernetes.audit.user.username like "system:serviceaccount:*"
)Detects creation or modification of Kubernetes RBAC role and cluster role bindings via the Kubernetes audit log stream ingested through the Elastic Kubernetes integration. Filters out pure system component writes while retaining service account mutations, which may indicate a compromised workload escalating its own privileges. Covers EKS, GKE, AKS, and self-managed clusters sending audit logs to Elasticsearch.
Data Sources
Required Tables
False Positives & Tuning
- Platform engineering or cluster administrators performing legitimate RBAC setup during namespace onboarding or cluster bootstrapping operations
- GitOps tools (ArgoCD, Flux) and Helm chart deployments that create service account role bindings as part of application installation
- Kubernetes operators and controllers (cert-manager, external-secrets-operator, prometheus-operator) that self-manage their own ClusterRoles and bindings during startup or reconciliation loops
Other platforms for T1098.006
Testing Methodology
Validate this detection against 4 adversary techniques from Atomic Red Team. Each test below lists the behaviour to exercise and the telemetry you should expect to see. Executable commands and cleanup steps are available with Pro.
- Test 1Create Privileged ClusterRoleBinding for Service Account
Expected signal: Kubernetes API server audit log: verb=create, objectRef.resource=clusterrolebindings, objectRef.name=attacker-cluster-admin-binding, responseStatus.code=201. Second audit event for serviceaccounts create. The requestObject will contain roleRef.name=cluster-admin and subjects referencing the service account.
- Test 2Create Namespace-Scoped RoleBinding for External User
Expected signal: Kubernetes API server audit log: verb=create, objectRef.resource=rolebindings, objectRef.namespace=attacker-test-ns, objectRef.name=attacker-ns-admin-binding, responseStatus.code=201. The requestObject includes roleRef.name=admin and subjects with kind=User and [email protected].
- Test 3Modify Existing ClusterRole to Add Wildcard Permissions
Expected signal: Kubernetes API server audit log: verb=patch, objectRef.resource=clusterroles, objectRef.name=attacker-test-role, responseStatus.code=200. The requestObject contains JSON patch operations adding wildcard rules. This differs from 'create' operations and may be missed by detections that only look for verb=create.
- Test 4Create ABAC Policy Entry via ConfigMap Modification
Expected signal: Kubernetes API server audit log: verb=create, objectRef.resource=configmaps, objectRef.name=attacker-abac-policy. If this were a real kube-system ABAC policy modification: verb=update/patch, objectRef.resource=configmaps, objectRef.namespace=kube-system. The ConfigMap data contains ABAC policy JSON granting wildcard permissions.
References (12)
- https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1098/006/
- https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/access-authn-authz/rbac/
- https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/access-authn-authz/abac/
- https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/security/rbac-good-practices/
- https://blog.aquasec.com/leveraging-kubernetes-rbac-to-backdoor-clusters
- https://cloud.google.com/kubernetes-engine/docs/how-to/iam
- https://docs.aws.amazon.com/eks/latest/userguide/iam-roles-for-service-accounts.html
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/aks/concepts-identity
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/aks/monitor-aks
- https://github.com/redcanaryco/atomic-red-team/blob/master/atomics/T1098.006/T1098.006.md
- https://www.cncf.io/blog/2021/07/06/practical-approach-to-kubernetes-audit-logging/
- https://cheatsheetseries.owasp.org/cheatsheets/Kubernetes_Security_Cheat_Sheet.html
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