Elastic Security Detection Rules

Kubernetes Service Account Modified RBAC Objects

Last updated 2 days ago on 2026-02-09
Created 7 days ago on 2026-02-04

About

Detects write operations performed by Kubernetes service accounts against RBAC resources (Roles, ClusterRoles, RoleBindings, ClusterRoleBindings). Service accounts typically do not manage RBAC directly; this activity may indicate token abuse, misconfigured permissions, or unauthorized privilege escalation.
Tags
Data Source: KubernetesDomain: KubernetesUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: Privilege EscalationTactic: PersistenceLanguage: kuery
Severity
medium
Risk Score
47
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
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
text code block:
event.dataset:"kubernetes.audit_logs" and kubernetes.audit.annotations.authorization_k8s_io/decision:"allow" and
kubernetes.audit.user.username:(
  system\:serviceaccount\:* and not (
    "system:serviceaccount:kube-system:clusterrole-aggregation-controller" or
    "system:serviceaccount:kube-system:generic-garbage-collector"
  )
) and
kubernetes.audit.objectRef.resource:("clusterrolebindings" or "clusterroles" or "rolebindings" or "roles") and
kubernetes.audit.verb:("create" or "delete" or "patch" or "update")

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Kubernetes Service Account Modified RBAC Objects 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).