Kubernetes RBAC Wildcard Elevation on Existing Role

Last updated 6 days ago on 2026-04-27

Created 6 days ago on 2026-04-27

About

Flags an existing Role or ClusterRole being changed (patch or update) so the effective rules become cluster-admin-like: wildcard on every API resource and wildcard on every verb. That is usually a deliberate privilege expansion, not a typo. RequestResponse audit and the response body are required so the detection reads the merged role after apply; loopback source IPs are ignored.

Tags

Data Source: KubernetesDomain: KubernetesUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: Privilege EscalationLanguage: esql

Severity

high

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)

False Positive Examples

Platform installers, GitOps controllers, and emergency break-glass roles sometimes ship or widen wildcard ClusterRoles; correlate with change records and narrow by user or service account when baselined.

License

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

Definition

Integration Pack: Prebuilt Security Detection Rules
Related Integrations: kubernetes(external, opens in a new tab or window)
Query

✄𐘗text code block:
✄𐘗from logs-kubernetes.audit_logs-* metadata _id, _index, _version
| where
  kubernetes.audit.objectRef.resource in ("roles", "clusterroles") and
  kubernetes.audit.verb in ("update", "patch") and
  `kubernetes.audit.annotations.authorization_k8s_io/decision` == "allow" and
  kubernetes.audit.level == "RequestResponse" and
  kubernetes.audit.stage == "ResponseComplete" and
  kubernetes.audit.sourceIPs is not null and
  not kubernetes.audit.sourceIPs in ("::1", "127.0.0.1") and
  KQL(""" kubernetes.audit.responseObject.rules.verbs:"*" and kubernetes.audit.responseObject.rules.resources:"*" """)
| keep user.name, user_agent.original, event.action, source.ip, kubernetes.audit.verb, kubernetes.audit.objectRef.resource, kubernetes.audit.objectRef.name, kubernetes.audit.requestURI, kubernetes.audit.user.username, kubernetes.audit.user.groups, `kubernetes.audit.annotations.authorization_k8s_io/decision`, event.original, _id, _version, _index, data_stream.namespace

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Kubernetes RBAC Wildcard Elevation on Existing Role 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).