GKE Pod Exec Cloud Instance Metadata Access

Last updated 7 days ago on 2026-07-15

Created 7 days ago on 2026-07-15

About

Detects successful GKE pod exec sessions whose command references Google Cloud instance metadata endpoints, including metadata.google.internal, computeMetadata/v1, or the link-local metadata IP 169.254.169.254. Workloads that reach the GKE metadata service from an exec session are often attempting to harvest short-lived credentials or instance attributes from the node or workload identity boundary. That behavior is high risk because it can expose cloud credentials to code running inside a container. GKE records the command in gcp.audit.labels.command.gke.io/command when an explicit command is passed to exec.

Tags

Domain: CloudDomain: KubernetesData Source: GCPData Source: GCP Audit LogsData Source: Google Cloud PlatformUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: Credential AccessTactic: ExecutionLanguage: kuery

Severity

high

Risk Score

MITRE ATT&CK™

Credential Access (TA0006)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

↳ Unsecured Credentials (T1552)(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

Break-glass debugging from platform engineers may include curl to the metadata IP or hostname.

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.type:start and
event.action:("io.k8s.core.v1.pods.exec.create" or "io.k8s.core.v1.pods.exec.get") and
gcp.audit.labels.command.gke.io/command:(
  *169.254.169.254* or *metadata.google.internal* or *computeMetadata/v1*
)

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect GKE Pod Exec Cloud Instance Metadata Access 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).