Suspicious Kubernetes Service Account Token Generation via kubectl

ATT&CK techniques

Defense Evasion → Lateral Movement

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
- T1550.001Application Access Token
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
- T1550.001Application Access Token
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects the use of kubectl create token to mint a service account token which attackers abuse after compromising an Amazon EKS node to impersonate service accounts and pivot from the Kubernetes cluster into the connected cloud account.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1550.001 — drag to rearrange

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Suspicious Kubernetes Service Account Token Generation via kubectl

Pivot detection · T1550.001 · 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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