Elastic Security Detection Rules

Kubernetes Denied Service Account Request

Last updated 2 months ago on 2025-06-18
Created 3 years ago on 2022-09-13

About

This rule detects when a service account makes an unauthorized request for resources from the API server. Service accounts follow a very predictable pattern of behavior. A service account should never send an unauthorized request to the API server. This behavior is likely an indicator of compromise or of a problem within the cluster. An adversary may have gained access to credentials/tokens and this could be an attempt to access or create resources to facilitate further movement or execution within the cluster.
Tags
Data Source: KubernetesTactic: DiscoveryLanguage: kuery
Severity
medium
Risk Score
47
MITRE ATT&CK™

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

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

False Positive Examples
Unauthorized requests from service accounts are highly abnormal and more indicative of human behavior or a serious problem within the cluster. This behavior should be investigated further.
License
Elastic License v2(opens in a new tab or window)

Definition

Rule Type
Query (Kibana Query Language)
Integration Pack
Prebuilt Security Detection Rules
Index Patterns
logs-kubernetes.audit_logs-*
Related Integrations

kubernetes(opens in a new tab or window)

Query
event.dataset: "kubernetes.audit_logs"
  and kubernetes.audit.user.username: system\:serviceaccount\:*
  and kubernetes.audit.annotations.authorization_k8s_io/decision: "forbid"

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Kubernetes Denied Service Account Request 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(opens in a new tab or window).