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GKE Anonymous Pod Create/Update/Patch

Detects create, update, or patch of pods by an unauthenticated anonymous GKE identity. Anonymous pod mutation is a critical misconfiguration signal and a common path for unauthenticated attackers to deploy workloads…

Description

Detects create, update, or patch of pods by an unauthenticated anonymous GKE identity. Anonymous pod mutation is a critical misconfiguration signal and a common path for unauthenticated attackers to deploy workloads or maintain access. Includes "system:anonymous" / "system:unauthenticated" and GKE audit rows with a missing principal (seen on unauthenticated Unauthorized/forbidden pod writes).

Detection logic

Its licence does not clear it for publishing here

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Detection requirements

Platform
Containers

The rule states no platform. This is derived from the ATT&CK technique it maps to.

Log source category
event_index

Known benign triggers

  • Anonymous pod writes should be rare. If observed from expected automation, anonymous authentication or RBAC for system:anonymous is likely misconfigured and should be remediated rather than broadly excluded.

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