Privilege Escalation: Launch of privileged Kubernetes container

This document describes a threat finding type in Security Command Center. Threat findings are generated by threat detectors when they detect a potential threat in your cloud resources. For a full list of available threat findings, see Threat findings index.

Finding description

A potentially malicious actor created a Pod that contains privileged containers or containers with privilege escalation capabilities.

A privileged container has the privileged field set to true. A container with privilege escalation capabilities has the allowPrivilegeEscalation field set to true. For more information, see the SecurityContext v1 core API reference in the Kubernetes documentation.

Step 1: Review finding details

  1. Open the Privilege Escalation: Launch of privileged Kubernetes container finding as directed in Reviewing findings. The details panel for the finding opens to the Summary tab.

  2. On the Summary tab, review the information in the following sections:

    • What was detected, especially the following fields:
      • Principal email: the account that made the call.
      • Kubernetes pods: the newly created Pod with privileged containers.
    • Affected resource, especially the following fields:
      • Resource display name: the Kubernetes cluster where the action occurred.
    • Related links, especially the following fields:
      • Cloud Logging URI: link to Logging entries.
      • MITRE ATT&CK method: link to the MITRE ATT&CK documentation.
      • Related findings: links to any related findings.

  3. On the JSON tab, note the values of the finding fields:

    • findings.kubernetes.pods[].containers: the privileged container turned up within the Pod.

Step 2: Check logs

  1. On the Summary tab of the finding details in the Google Cloud console, go to Logs Explorer by clicking the link in the Cloud Logging URI field.

  2. Check for other actions taken by the principal by using the following filters:

    • resource.labels.cluster_name="CLUSTER_NAME"

    • protoPayload.authenticationInfo.principalEmail="PRINCIPAL_EMAIL"

      Replace the following:

    • CLUSTER_NAME: the value that you noted in the Resource display name field in the finding details.

    • PRINCIPAL_EMAIL: the value that you noted in the Principal email field in the finding details.

Step 3: Research attack and response methods

  1. Review MITRE ATT&CK framework entries for this finding type: Privilege Escalation.
  2. Confirm that the container created requires access to host resources and kernel capabilities.
  3. Determine whether there are other signs of malicious activity by the principal in the logs.

  4. If the principal email isn't a service account, contact the owner of the account to confirm whether the legitimate owner conducted the action.

    If the principal email is a service account (IAM or Kubernetes), identify the source of the action to determine its legitimacy.

  5. To develop a response plan, combine your investigation results with MITRE research.

What's next