Minimize the admission of containers with allowPrivilegeEscalation

How it is checked

Audit method: Shell command

out=$(kubectl get pods -A -o go-template='{{range .items}}{{$ns:=.metadata.namespace}}{{$p:=.metadata.name}}{{range .spec.containers}}{{$ns}} {{$p}} {{.name}} {{with .securityContext}}{{.allowPrivilegeEscalation}}{{end}}{{"\n"}}{{end}}{{range .spec.initContainers}}{{$ns}} {{$p}} {{.name}} {{with .securityContext}}{{.allowPrivilegeEscalation}}{{end}}{{"\n"}}{{end}}{{range .spec.ephemeralContainers}}{{$ns}} {{$p}} {{.name}} {{with .securityContext}}{{.allowPrivilegeEscalation}}{{end}}{{"\n"}}{{end}}{{end}}') || exit 1
bad=$(printf '%s\n' "$out" | awk -v ex='^(kube-system|kube-public|kube-node-lease)$' 'NF && $1 !~ ex && ($4!="false")')
if [ -z "$bad" ]; then echo compliant; else printf '%s\n' "$bad" | head -n 25; fi

Expected output

compliant

How it is fixed

Fix method: Guidance or infrastructure patch

Configure Pod Security Admission on workload namespaces so containers that do not explicitly set securityContext.allowPrivilegeEscalation=false are denied at admission time. In EKS, use restricted for workload namespaces, or an equivalent policy engine, because AWS shows that restricted requires allowPrivilegeEscalation=false. Use enforce for actual remediation, since warn and audit only report violations and do not block pod creation. • Label each workload namespace to enforce restricted. kubectl label ns NAMESPACE pod-security.kubernetes.io/enforce=restricted --overwrite • Add warn and audit during rollout if you want visibility into violations before or alongside enforcement.

Check this host

Run this on a machine you are allowed to audit. The scan is read-only.

tmaegis scan --target eks