AWS EKS Cluster-Admin Role Binding Created

Last updated 2 days ago on 2026-10-21

Created 3 months ago on 2026-08-03

About

This rule detects the creation of a RoleBinding or ClusterRoleBinding that grants the cluster-admin ClusterRole, which provides unrestricted access to all Kubernetes resources and represents a high-risk privilege escalation or misconfiguration.

Tags

Domain: CloudDomain: ContainersPlatform: AWSPlatform: KubernetesData Source: AWSData Source: Amazon Web ServicesData Source: Kubernetes API Server Audit LogsService: AWS EKSUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: PersistenceTactic: Privilege EscalationRule Type: Custom Query (KQL)Profile: BetaLanguage: kuery

Severity

medium

Risk Score

MITRE ATT&CK™

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

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

Privilege Escalation (TA0004)(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: Query (Kibana Query Language)
Integration Pack: Prebuilt Security Detection Rules
Index Patterns: logs-aws.eks_audit-*
Related Integrations: aws(external, opens in a new tab or window)
Query

✄𐘗text code block:
✄𐘗data_stream.dataset: "aws.eks_audit" and aws.eks.audit.objectRef.resource:("clusterrolebindings" or "rolebindings") and
aws.eks.audit.verb:"create" and aws.eks.audit.requestObject.roleRef.name:"cluster-admin" and
aws.eks.audit.annotations.authorization_k8s_io/decision:"allow" and
aws.eks.audit.level:"RequestResponse" and aws.eks.audit.stage:"ResponseComplete"

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect AWS EKS Cluster-Admin Role Binding Created 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).