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benchmarking-kubernetes-with-kube-bench

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Installs and runs the kube-bench tool against a Kubernetes cluster as a Job, DaemonSet, or standalone binary, selecting the correct benchmark version and targets (control plane, etcd, kubelet, worker nodes) and emitting JSON or JUnit output for pipelines. Use when setting kube-bench up for the first time, choosing which benchmark version and node targets to run, wiring it into CI, or troubleshooting skipped or misdetected checks. Keywords: kube-bench, DaemonSet, --benchmark, --targets, JSON output, JUnit, CI integration. Do not use for interpreting the findings or producing an audit report - use performing-kubernetes-cis-benchmark-with-kube-bench.

skills/benchmarking-kubernetes-with-kube-bench/SKILL.md

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# Benchmarking Kubernetes with kube-bench

## Overview

kube-bench (by Aqua Security) is an open-source tool that checks whether a Kubernetes cluster is deployed securely by running the checks documented in the **CIS Kubernetes Benchmark**. It inspects the control-plane components (API server, controller manager, scheduler, etcd), the kubelet and worker-node configuration, and cluster-wide policy settings, then reports each check as PASS, FAIL, WARN, or INFO with a remediation recommendation drawn directly from the CIS guidance. Tests are configuration-driven YAML files, so kube-bench tracks new Kubernetes versions and benchmark revisions and supports managed distributions (EKS, GKE, AKS, ACK, OpenShift, RKE, k3s).

Hardening a cluster against the CIS Benchmark directly reduces the attack surface for **T1610 (Deploy Container)**, where an adversary deploys a container to execute code or evade defenses — for example by abusing privileged containers, host namespaces, anonymous API access, or insecure kubelet settings that an unhardened cluster leaves exposed.

kube-bench can run as a standalone binary on a node, inside a container, or — most commonly — as a Kubernetes Job whose pod has the host filesystem mounted so it can read the relevant config files. Output is available as human-readable text, JSON, JUnit, or AWS Security Finding Format (ASFF) and can be pushed to a PostgreSQL database for trend tracking.

## When to Use

- When establishing a security baseline for a new Kubernetes cluster against the CIS Kubernetes Benchmark.
- When performing periodic compliance audits of control-plane and node hardening.
- When validating remediation after applying hardening changes (re-run to confirm checks now PASS).
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