/auditing-kubernetes-rbac-privilege-escalation

name: auditing-kubernetes-rbac-privilege-escalation
description: Find over-permissive RBAC roles and service-account token abuse paths in Kubernetes using kubectl auth can-i, rbac-police, kubectl-who-can, and rakkess during authorized cluster security reviews.
domain: cybersecurity
subdomain: container-security
tags:
- kubernetes
- rbac
- privilege-escalation
- service-account
- least-privilege
- kubectl
- access-control
- attack-paths
version: '1.0'
author: mahipal
license: Apache-2.0
nist_csf:
- PR.AA-05
mitre_attack:
- T1078

Auditing Kubernetes RBAC Privilege Escalation

> **Legal Notice:** This skill is for authorized security testing and educational purposes only. Enumerating and exercising RBAC permissions affects a live cluster's access posture. Only test clusters you own or are explicitly authorized in writing to assess.

Overview

Kubernetes Role-Based Access Control (RBAC, MITRE ATT&CK T1078 Valid Accounts) governs what every user and service account may do via `Role`/`ClusterRole` rules bound by `RoleBinding`/`ClusterRoleBinding`. Because workloads run with a mounted service-account token by default, an attacker who compromises one pod inherits that account's RBAC rights. Over-permissive bindings turn a single compromised pod into a cluster takeover: certain verbs and resources are "RBAC-equivalent to cluster-admin."

Per the Kubernetes "RBAC Good Practices" guidance and Unit 42 research, the dangerous primitives are:

• **`escalate` on roles** — grant yourself any permission, even ones you do not hold.
• **`bind` on clusterroles** — create a binding to `cluster-admin`.
• **`impersonate`** on users/groups/serviceaccounts — act as any subject including `system:masters`.
• **`create`/`update`/`patch` on `pods`** — schedule a privileged pod or mount the node, escaping to the host (T1611).
• **`create` on `pods/exec`, `pods/attach`, `pods/ephemeralcontainers`** — run code in any existing pod.
• **`get`/`list`/`watch` on `secrets`** — list returns full secret contents, including other service-account tokens.
• **`create` on `serviceaccounts/token`** — mint tokens for more privileged accounts.
• **`update`/`patch` on `validatingwebhookconfigurations`/`mutatingwebhookconfigurations`, `nodes/proxy`, `certificatesigningrequests/approval`** — admission/CSR abuse to cluster-admin.
• **Wildcards** (`verbs: ["*"]`, `resources: ["*"]`) — implicit super-privilege.

This skill systematically enumerates effective permissions for every subject, maps which subjects hold these escalation primitives, and produces remediation evidence. Source: Kubernetes RBAC Good Practices; Unit 42 Kubernetes RBAC research.

When to Use

• During an authorized Kubernetes security assessment or cluster penetration test
• After compromising a pod, to determine what its service-account token can reach
• When reviewing RBAC drift before a production go-live
• When validating least-privilege after a platform migration or Helm rollout

Prerequisites

• `kubectl` configured against the target cluster (your own credentials, or a captured service-account token)
• Read access to RBAC objects (most audits run with a cluster-reader or admin context)
• Audit tooling:

  # rbac-police - find escalation paths (Cymulate)
  curl -L https://github.com/PaloAltoNetworks/rbac-police/releases/latest/download/rbac-police-linux-amd64 -o rbac-police
  chmod +x rbac-police

  # kubectl-who-can - which subjects can perform an action (Aqua)
  kubectl krew install who-can

  # rakkess - access matrix of resources x verbs for the current/another subject
  kubectl krew install access-matrix

  # rbac-lookup - which roles a subject has (FairwindsOps)
  kubectl krew install rbac-lookup

Objectives

• Inventory all `Role`, `ClusterRole`, `RoleBinding`, and `ClusterRoleBinding` objects
• Enumerate effective permissions per subject using `kubectl auth can-i --as`
• Identify subjects holding RBAC-equivalent-to-admin primitives
• Trace token-mounting pods to over-privileged service accounts
• Demonstrate (in a lab) one escalation path end-to-end
• Output a prioritized findings report with least-privilege remediation

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

| Technique ID | Name | Tactic | |--------------|------|--------| | T1078 | Valid Accounts | Defense Evasion / Persistence / Privilege Escalation | | T1098 | Account Manipulation | Persistence | | T1528 | Steal Application Access Token | Credential Access | | T1613 | Container and Resource Discovery | Discovery | | T1611 | Escape to Host | Privilege Escalation |

Workflow

Step 1: Inventory RBAC Objects

# All roles and bindings, cluster-wide
kubectl get clusterroles,clusterrolebindings -o wide
kubectl get roles,rolebindings --all-namespaces -o wide

# Dump full RBAC for offline analysis
kubectl get clusterroles,clusterrolebindings,roles,rolebindings \
  --all-namespaces -o yaml > rbac-dump.yaml

# Who is bound to cluster-admin?
kubectl get clusterrolebindings -o json | \
  jq -r '.items[] | select(.roleRef.name=="cluster-admin") |
         .metadata.name + " -> " + (.subjects // [] | map(.kind+"/"+.name) | join(","))'

Step 2: Enumerate Effective Permissions per Subject

`kubectl auth can-i` is the authoritative check because it evaluates the live authorizer (RBAC + webhooks). Use `--as` to impersonate a subject (requires impersonate rights for the audit identity).

# Full access matrix for a service account
kubectl auth can-i --list \
  --as=system:serviceaccount:default:default

# Targeted dangerous-permission probes
kubectl auth can-i create pods --all-namespaces \
  --as=system:serviceaccount:dev:builder
kubectl auth can-i get secrets --all-namespaces \
  --as=system:serviceaccount:dev:builder
kubectl auth can-i create serviceaccounts/token -n kube-system \
  --as=system:serviceaccount:dev:builder
kubectl auth can-i '*' '*' --all-namespaces \
  --as=system:serviceaccount:dev:builder

# rakkess full verb x resource matrix for a subject
kubectl