Service Account Namespace Read Detected via Defend for Containers

Last updated 2 months ago on 2026-02-06
Created 2 months ago on 2026-01-21

About

This rule detects the reading of the service account namespace file inside a container. The service account namespace file is used to identify the namespace of the container in which it is running, and may be used by an adversary to get a better understanding of the container and the services running inside it.
Tags
Data Source: Elastic Defend for ContainersDomain: ContainerOS: LinuxUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: DiscoveryLanguage: eql
Severity
low
Risk Score
21
MITRE ATT&CK™

Discovery (TA0007)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

False Positive Examples
There is a potential for false positives if the reading of the service account namespace file is used for legitimate purposes, such as debugging or troubleshooting. It is important to investigate any alerts generated by this rule to determine if they are indicative of malicious activity or part of legitimate container activity.
License
Elastic License v2(external, opens in a new tab or window)

Definition

Rule Type
Event Correlation Rule
Integration Pack
Prebuilt Security Detection Rules
Index Patterns
logs-cloud_defend.file*logs-cloud_defend.process*
Related Integrations

cloud_defend(external, opens in a new tab or window)

Query
text code block:
any where host.os.type == "linux" and process.interactive == true and container.id like "*" and ( (event.category == "file" and event.type == "change" and event.action == "open" and file.path in ( "/var/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount/namespace", "/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount/namespace" )) or (event.category == "process" and event.type == "start" and event.action == "exec" and ( process.name in ("cat", "head", "tail", "more", "less", "sed", "awk") or process.args in ( "cat", "/bin/cat", "/usr/bin/cat", "/usr/local/bin/cat", "head", "/bin/head", "/usr/bin/head", "/usr/local/bin/head", "tail", "/bin/tail", "/usr/bin/tail", "/usr/local/bin/tail", "more", "/bin/more", "/usr/bin/more", "/usr/local/bin/more", "less", "/bin/less", "/usr/bin/less", "/usr/local/bin/less", "sed", "/bin/sed", "/usr/bin/sed", "/usr/local/bin/sed", "awk", "/bin/awk", "/usr/bin/awk", "/usr/local/bin/awk" ) ) and process.args like "*/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount/namespace*" ) )

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Service Account Namespace Read Detected via Defend for Containers 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).