Suspicious Creation Of Pod In System Namespace (via application)

title: Suspicious Creation Of Pod In System Namespace (via application)
id: ec4460f1-4528-52b1-aee7-0b9ce550a479
status: stable
description: This rule detects deployments of pods within the kube-system namespace, which could be intended to imitate system pods. System pods, created by controllers such as Deployments or DaemonSets have random suffixes in their names. Attackers can use this fact and name their backdoor pods as if they were created by these controllers to avoid detection. Deployment of such a backdoor container e.g. named kube-proxy-bv61v, could be attempted in the kube-system namespace alongside the other administrative containers.
references:
    - https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1036/005/
    - https://microsoft.github.io/Threat-Matrix-for-Kubernetes/techniques/Pod%20or%20container%20name%20similarily/
author: Huntrule Team
date: 2026-07-02
tags:
    - attack.stealth
    - attack.t1036.005
logsource:
    category: application
    product: kubernetes
    service: audit
detection:
    selection:
        verb: 'create'
        objectRef.resource: 'pods'
        objectRef.namespace: kube-system
    condition: selection
falsepositives:
    - Unknown
level: medium