7 Kubernetes Security Scanners To Use In Your DevSecOps Pipeline
Securing a Kubernetes cluster is a critical but often overlooked aspect of using this popular container orchestration platform. If an attacker is able to exploit a weakness or misconfiguration in your cluster, they could potentially compromise your application environment and cause significant damage to your business. To mitigate this risk, it is important to regularly scan your cluster for vulnerabilities and take steps to address any issues that are identified.
Despite Kubernetes’ built-in IAM and role-based access control (RBAC) features, these basic security measures may not be sufficient to protect modern applications from increasingly sophisticated threats. As a result, many organizations have turned to external tools to enhance the security of their Kubernetes clusters. These tools can scan for vulnerabilities, identify potential issues, and provide recommendations for addressing any security weaknesses.
Both free and open-source as well as paid options are available, and it is important for organizations to carefully evaluate the different options to find the solution that best meets their needs. By using these tools and following best practices for cluster security, you can ensure that your Kubernetes deployment is as secure as possible.
Kubeaudit
https://github.com/Shopify/kubeaudit
Kubeaudit is a command-line tool written in Golang that is designed to audit Kubernetes clusters for potential vulnerabilities. Developed by Shopify, Kubeaudit performs a series of security checks, known as “auditors”, on the cluster to identify any weaknesses or misconfigurations. These auditors cover a range of security issues, including the possibility of privilege escalation, misconfigurations in cluster images, the SecurityContext of pods, and the status of the root account. In addition to identifying vulnerabilities, Kubeaudit also provides recommendations on how to address them, with each auditor offering detailed guidance on best practices for securing the cluster. Some of the key security recommendations made by Kubeaudit include running applications as a non-root user, setting the root filesystem to read-only access, and implementing other general security measures.
Kubesec
Kubsec is an open-source tool that helps organizations secure their Kubernetes clusters by scanning for common vulnerabilities and providing a severity score for each identified risk. It takes a single Kubernetes YAML manifest file as input and is capable of detecting exploitable issues such as privileged capabilities. Kubsec can be installed on a system using a container image or binary package, or used as a kubectl plugin to scan Kubernetes deployments, pods, and resources. This versatility makes it a useful tool for a wide range of organizations looking to improve the security of their Kubernetes clusters.
Kube Bench
https://github.com/aquasecurity/kube-bench
Kube Bench is an open-source tool developed by Aquasecurity that helps organizations ensure compliance with the Center for Internet Security (CIS) best practices for secure coding. CIS is a regulatory body that provides guidelines and benchmark tests for writing secure code, and Kube Bench is designed to check whether a Kubernetes cluster meets these benchmarks. It is written in Golang and can be deployed as a container, making it easy to use in managed Kubernetes services such as Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) and OpenShift. Kube Bench runs tests on a Kubernetes environment and highlights any areas that do not comply with the CIS benchmarks. It also provides suggestions for resolving these issues, with the tests being easily extensible and defined in YAML format, with support for JSON output. By using Kube Bench, organizations can ensure that their Kubernetes deployments meet the highest standards for security and compliance.
Kube Scan
https://github.com/octarinesec/kube-scan
Kube Scan is an open-source Kubernetes risk scanning tool that helps organizations assess the security of their clusters. It uses the Kubernetes Common Configuration Scoring System (KCCSS) framework to calculate a risk score for a cluster, with scores ranging from 1 to 9, with higher numbers indicating higher risk. The risk score and details of identified risks are presented in a web UI for easy review and analysis.
KCCSS is an open-source framework that uses various Kubernetes security settings, such as policies, capabilities, and privilege levels, to create a risk baseline that is used to generate the risk score. This framework can be extended to suit the specific needs of an organization, and Kube Scan can be run as a command-line utility to scan a cluster according to these customized rules.
Kube Scan is a container scanner that runs as a container in the cluster, and it rescans the cluster every 24 hours to provide up-to-date risk data. This allows organizations to stay informed about the security of their clusters and take timely action to address any identified vulnerabilities.
KubiScan
https://github.com/cyberark/KubiScan
KubiScan is a Kubernetes security scanner that helps organizations understand how their Kubernetes environment is handling role-based access control (RBAC). It is a command-line tool that is specifically designed to scan for and identify potential risks in permissions and roles settings. With KubiScan, it is easy to search for pods with privileged accounts and to query the roles associated with specific pods. This can help organizations identify and address any potential vulnerabilities in their RBAC configuration and improve the overall security of their Kubernetes deployment.
Kube Score
https://github.com/zegl/kube-score
Kube Score uses a non-intrusive method to scan object definitions, meaning it does not cause any harm to the system during the process. The output of Kube Score is presented in a human-readable form, making it easy to understand and apply by professionals. This can help organizations make their applications more secure, reliable, and resilient. Kube Score can be accessed directly from the web at kube-score.com for quick analysis, or it can be installed using Docker, Homebrew, Krew, or prebuilt binaries for Mac, Windows, and Linux.
Kube Hunter
https://github.com/aquasecurity/kube-hunter
Kube Hunter is an open-source Kubernetes vulnerability scanner developed by Aqua Security. Unlike some other scanners that focus solely on compliance with the Center for Internet Security (CIS) best practices, Kube Hunter goes beyond these guidelines to identify potentially dangerous issues that could be exploited by attackers. It enhances the CIS rules used by tools like Kube Bench with additional discovery and penetration testing capabilities to thoroughly search for potential security threats in a cluster.
Kube Hunter offers multiple options for running the tool, including local and remote execution and network scanning. It returns around 40 different vulnerabilities, each with a unique ID and accompanying error message to make it easy to look up and understand the issue. By using Kube Hunter to regularly scan and monitor their clusters, organizations can proactively identify and address security risks before they are exploited.
