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auditing-kubernetes-rbac-privilege-escalation

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Finds over-permissive RBAC roles and service-account token abuse paths in a Kubernetes cluster using kubectl auth can-i, rbac-police, kubectl-who-can, and rakkess, tracing which subjects can escalate toward cluster-admin. Use when reviewing who can escalate privileges in a cluster, hunting exploitable RoleBindings during an authorized review, or validating least privilege after an RBAC change. Keywords: RBAC, ClusterRoleBinding, service account token, auth can-i, rbac-police, escalate, bind, impersonate. Do not use for designing and applying hardened RBAC - use implementing-rbac-hardening-for-kubernetes.

skills/auditing-kubernetes-rbac-privilege-escalation/SKILL.md

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Aug 31, 2026
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Apache-2.0

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# Auditing Kubernetes RBAC Privilege Escalation

> **Legal Notice:** This skill is for authorized security testing and educational purposes only. Enumerating and exercising RBAC permissions affects a live cluster's access posture. Only test clusters you own or are explicitly authorized in writing to assess.

## Overview

Kubernetes Role-Based Access Control (RBAC, MITRE ATT&CK T1078 Valid Accounts) governs what every user and service account may do via `Role`/`ClusterRole` rules bound by `RoleBinding`/`ClusterRoleBinding`. Because workloads run with a mounted service-account token by default, an attacker who compromises one pod inherits that account's RBAC rights. Over-permissive bindings turn a single compromised pod into a cluster takeover: certain verbs and resources are "RBAC-equivalent to cluster-admin."

Per the Kubernetes "RBAC Good Practices" guidance and Unit 42 research, the dangerous primitives are:

- **`escalate` on roles** — grant yourself any permission, even ones you do not hold.
- **`bind` on clusterroles** — create a binding to `cluster-admin`.
- **`impersonate`** on users/groups/serviceaccounts — act as any subject including `system:masters`.
- **`create`/`update`/`patch` on `pods`** — schedule a privileged pod or mount the node, escaping to the host (T1611).
- **`create` on `pods/exec`, `pods/attach`, `pods/ephemeralcontainers`** — run code in any existing pod.
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