Kubernetes Pod Exec Sensitive File or Credential Path Access
Detects Kubernetes pod exec sessions whose decoded command line references high-value host or in-cluster paths and material types: mounted service account or platform tokens, kubelet and control-plane configuration…
Description
Detects Kubernetes pod exec sessions whose decoded command line references high-value host or in-cluster paths and material types: mounted service account or platform tokens, kubelet and control-plane configuration areas, host identity stores, root dot-directories for cloud and kubeconfig material, common private-key and keystore extensions, process environment dumps, and configuration filenames suggestive of embedded secrets. The intent is to catch interactive or scripted access that often precedes lateral movement, privilege escalation, or credential theft from the node or workload boundary. A narrow exclusion ignores benign reads of resolv.conf. The query also labels an access_type bucket to speed triage without altering the detection predicates you validated.
Detection logic
Its licence does not clear it for publishing here
Sunturai publishes a detection's own text where the licence it arrived under has been reviewed and permits it, and Elastic License 2.0 has not. The query as its source wrote it, its canonical form and the hash that pins this revision are in the workspace record.
Detection requirements
- Platform
- ContainersIaaSIdentity ProviderLinuxmacOSNetwork DevicesOffice SuiteSaaSWindows
The rule states no platform. This is derived from the 2 ATT&CK techniques it maps to.
MITRE ATT&CK mappings
0 exclusive techniques.This is coverage no other published rule has; it is not this rule's total technique count.
References
| Reference | Cited by |
|---|---|
| attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1552/001/ | 3 |
| attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1552/007/ | 12 |
From the source
- At source
- Open at source
- Upstream identifier
- b2c3d4e5-f6a7-4890-b1c2-d3e4f5a60789
- Tagged by the source as
- Data Source: KubernetesData Source: Kubernetes API Server Audit LogsDomain: CloudDomain: ContainersDomain: KubernetesNoise: UnknownPerformance: NormalPlatform: KubernetesResources: Investigation GuideRule Type: ES|QLTactic: Credential AccessTactic: ExecutionUse Case: Threat Detection
Licence
- Published under
- Elastic License 2.0Read the licence
- Attribution
- Required
Authorship
- Written by
- Published
- Sep 20, 2026
- Version
- 3