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Minimize the admission of containers wishing to share the host network namespace

A container running in the host's network namespace could access the local loopback device, and could access network traffic to and from other pods.

Category

Controls

Medium

Applies to

Kubernetes

Coverage

1 queries

Asset types

1 covered

Overview

A container running in the host's network namespace could access the local loopback device, and could access network traffic to and from other pods.

There should be at least one admission control policy defined which does not permit containers to share the host network namespace.

If you need to run containers which require access to the host's network namespaces, this should be defined in a separate policy and you should carefully check to ensure that only limited service accounts and users are given permission to use that policy.

Remediation guidance

Add policies to each namespace in the cluster which has user workloads to restrict the admission of hostNetwork containers.

Service-wide remediation

Recommended when many resources are affected: fix the platform baseline first so new resources inherit the secure setting, then remediate the existing flagged resources in batches.

Kubernetes

Use admission policies, baseline cluster configuration, GitOps templates, and namespace or workload guardrails so new deployments follow the control by default.

Operational rollout

  1. Fix the baseline first at the account, subscription, project, cluster, or tenant scope that owns this control.
  2. Remediate the currently affected resources in batches, starting with internet-exposed and production assets.
  3. Re-scan and track approved exceptions with an owner and expiry date.

Query logic

These are the stored checks tied to this control.

Check there are restrictions on the creation of hostNetwork containers

Connectors

Kubernetes

Covered asset types

Pod

Expected check: eq []

{
  pods(where: { hostNetwork: true NOT: { namespace: "kube-system" } }) {
    ...AssetFragment
  }
}
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