Kubernetes Ephemeral Container Added to Pod

Last updated 8 days ago on 2026-05-07

Created 8 days ago on 2026-05-07

About

Detects allowed updates to the pods/ephemeralcontainers subresource by a non-system identity. Ephemeral containers are commonly used for debugging (kubectl debug) but can also be abused to inject tooling into a running pod, access mounted secrets, and execute commands in the target pod context. Attackers with sufficient RBAC may use ephemeral containers to escalate privileges, move laterally, or establish persistence without deploying a new workload.

Tags

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

Severity

medium

Risk Score

MITRE ATT&CK™

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

↳ Escape to Host (T1611)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

Execution (TA0002)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

↳ Container Administration Command (T1609)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

False Positive Examples

Cluster operators or SREs may legitimately use ephemeral containers for debugging production workloads. Baseline approved admin identities and tune exclusions for known automation.

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-kubernetes.audit_logs-*
Related Integrations: kubernetes(external, opens in a new tab or window)
Query

✄𐘗text code block:
✄𐘗data_stream.dataset:"kubernetes.audit_logs" and 
kubernetes.audit.objectRef.resource:"pods" and
kubernetes.audit.objectRef.subresource:"ephemeralcontainers" and
kubernetes.audit.verb:("update" or "patch") and
kubernetes.audit.annotations.authorization_k8s_io/decision:"allow" and
not user.name:(
  system\:node\:* or
  system\:serviceaccount\:kube-system\:*
)

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Kubernetes Ephemeral Container Added to Pod 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).