Azure AKS Potential API Enumeration by User

Last updated 21 days ago on 2026-07-09

Created 21 days ago on 2026-07-09

About

Detects a single Kubernetes identity in AKS (Azure Kubernetes Service) that is denied (HTTP 403 Forbidden) across multiple distinct API resource types within a short window. Broad authorization failures spanning many resources are a strong signal of API enumeration (reconnaissance with a stolen service account token), as an actor probes what its credentials can reach before privilege escalation. Detection is based on the breadth of denied resources rather than the raw failure count, so single-resource controller retry loops do not trigger it.

Tags

Domain: CloudDomain: KubernetesData Source: AzureData Source: Azure Platform LogsData Source: KubernetesUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: DiscoveryLanguage: kuery

Severity

medium

Risk Score

MITRE ATT&CK™

Discovery (TA0007)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

↳ Container and Resource Discovery (T1613)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

False Positive Examples

A workload or observability agent with partial RBAC can be denied across several resource types and resemble enumeration (for example a monitoring agent that watches resources it lacks permission for). Baseline such identities and raise the cardinality threshold, or exclude the specific validated service account, after review. Single-resource retry loops (one resource denied repeatedly) do not trigger this rule because detection is based on the number of distinct resources denied, not the raw failure count.

License

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

Definition

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

✄𐘗text code block:
✄𐘗data_stream.dataset:azure.platformlogs and
  event.action:"Microsoft.ContainerService/managedClusters/diagnosticLogs/Read" and
  azure.platformlogs.category:"kube-audit" and
  azure.platformlogs.properties.log.stage:"ResponseComplete" and
  azure.platformlogs.properties.log.responseStatus.code:"403" and
  azure.platformlogs.properties.log.responseStatus.reason:"Forbidden" and
  not azure.platformlogs.properties.log.user.username:(
    system\:node\:* or "aksService" or "hcpService" or "readinessChecker" or
    system\:serviceaccount\:kube-system\:*
  )

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Azure AKS Potential API Enumeration by User 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).