GKE Exposed Service Created With Type NodePort

Last updated 9 days ago on 2026-07-13

Created 9 days ago on 2026-07-13

About

Detects creation or modification of a GKE Service with type NodePort. NodePort exposes a static port on every worker node that hosts matching pods, which widens the cluster's external attack surface and can bypass load-balancer and firewall controls. Attackers may create NodePort Services to intercept traffic or establish a direct path into the cluster.

Tags

Domain: CloudDomain: KubernetesData Source: GCPData Source: Google Cloud PlatformUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: PersistenceTactic: Initial AccessLanguage: kuery

Severity

medium

Risk Score

MITRE ATT&CK™

Persistence (TA0003)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

↳ External Remote Services (T1133)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

Initial Access (TA0001)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

↳ External Remote Services (T1133)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

False Positive Examples

Developers may legitimately use NodePort for frontends without cloud load balancers, or for nonstandard networking. system:addon-manager patch reconciliation of existing NodePort Services is excluded; create and update from addon-manager still alert.

License

Elastic License v2(external, opens in a new tab or window)

Definition

Rule Type: Query (Kibana Query Language)
Integration Pack: Prebuilt Security Detection Rules
Index Patterns: logs-gcp.audit-*
Related Integrations: gcp(external, opens in a new tab or window)
Query

✄𐘗text code block:
✄𐘗data_stream.dataset:gcp.audit and service.name:"k8s.io" and event.outcome:success and
event.action:(
  "io.k8s.core.v1.services.create" or
  "io.k8s.core.v1.services.update" or
  "io.k8s.core.v1.services.patch"
) and gcp.audit.request.spec.type:"NodePort" and not (
  client.user.email:"system:addon-manager" and
  event.action:"io.k8s.core.v1.services.patch"
)

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect GKE Exposed Service Created With Type NodePort in the Elastic Security detection engine by installing this rule into your Elastic Stack.

To setup this rule, check out the installation guide for Prebuilt Security Detection Rules(external, opens in a new tab or window).