Unusual Kubernetes Sensitive Workload Modification

Last updated 10 days ago on 2026-03-05

Created 10 days ago on 2026-03-05

About

Detects the creation or modification of several sensitive workloads, such as DaemonSets, Deployments, or CronJobs, by an unusual user agent, source IP and username, which may indicate privilege escalation or unauthorized access within the cluster.

Tags

Data Source: KubernetesDomain: KubernetesUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: Privilege EscalationTactic: PersistenceLanguage: kuery

Severity

low

Risk Score

MITRE ATT&CK™

Privilege Escalation (TA0004)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

↳ Account Manipulation (T1098)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

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

↳ Account Manipulation (T1098)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

License

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

Definition

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

✄𐘗text code block:
✄𐘗event.dataset:"kubernetes.audit_logs" and user_agent.original:* and
kubernetes.audit.annotations.authorization_k8s_io/decision:"allow" and
kubernetes.audit.objectRef.resource:("daemonsets" or "deployments" or "cronjobs") and
kubernetes.audit.verb:("create" or "patch") and
not kubernetes.audit.user.groups:"system:masters"

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Unusual Kubernetes Sensitive Workload Modification 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).