Suspicious Anonymous Access to Kubernetes API Server via Audit Log

ATT&CK techniques

Discovery

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
- T1526Cloud Service Discovery
- T1613Container and Resource Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects Kubernetes API server requests authenticated as system:anonymous or belonging to the system:unauthenticated group. Adversaries query an unauthenticated API server to enumerate pods, secrets, and other cluster resources for reconnaissance and initial access. Anonymous access to the control plane indicates a misconfigured cluster exposed to untrusted callers.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1526 — drag to rearrange

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Malicious Directory Enumeration With Recon Tooling User Agent via Azure AD Graph

Kubernetes audit log signals potential tool and shell enumeration/execution activity

GitHub Audit Log: Self-Hosted Runner Configuration Changes

Azure sign-in logs: Detect AzureHound discovery tool via default User-Agent

Suspicious Anonymous Access to Kubernetes API Server via Audit Log

Pivot detection · T1526 · 9 related

Detection content is published as a reviewed draft. Tune thresholds and exclusions against your own telemetry before enabling this rule for alerting.

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