KubernetesOverview
Do not generally permit containers to be run with the securityContext.privileged flag
set to true.
Rationale
Privileged containers have access to all Linux Kernel capabilities and devices. A container running with full privileges can do almost everything that the host can do. This flag exists to allow special use-cases, like manipulating the network stack and accessing devices.
There should be at least one admission control policy defined which does not permit privileged containers.
If you need to run privileged containers, 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.
Impact
Pods defined with spec.containers[].securityContext.privileged: true,
spec.initContainers[].securityContext.privileged: true and
spec.ephemeralContainers[].securityContext.privileged: true will not be permitted.
Audit
Run the following command:
kubectl get pods -A -o=jsonpath=$'{range .items[*]}{@.metadata.name}:
{@..securityContext}\n{end}'
It will produce an inventory of all the privileged use on the cluster, if any. Further grepping can be done to automate each specific violation detection.
Remediation guidance
Add policies to each namespace in the cluster which has user workloads to restrict the admission of privileged containers.
Default Value
By default, there are no restrictions on the creation of privileged containers.
References
Multiple Remediation Paths
SERVICE-WIDE (RECOMMENDED when many resources are affected): Apply organization/tenant-level guardrails and baseline policies for the entire platform.
ASSET-LEVEL: Fix only the affected resources identified by this control.
PREVENTIVE: Add preventive policy checks to CI/CD and periodic posture scans.
References for Service-Wide Patterns
- Platform policy/governance and preventive control patterns should be applied tenant-wide where supported.
Query logic
These are the stored checks tied to this control.
Minimize the admission of privileged containers (Pod)
Connectors
Covered asset types
Expected check: eq []
{
pods(where: { containers_SOME: { securityContext: { privileged: true } NOT: { namespace: "kube-system" } } }) {
...AssetFragment
}
}
