Files
Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills/skills/analyzing-kubernetes-audit-logs/SKILL.md
T
Mahipal 6972fe933e docs(skills): rewrite container-security descriptions to a uniform standard
All 33 container-security skills now carry what it does, an explicit
"Use when" trigger, keywords, and a negative trigger naming the nearest
neighbour. Six collision clusters resolved by differentiating scope
rather than merging, so no skill is removed:

- kube-bench: running the tool vs interpreting findings into an audit
- Calico: portable upstream NetworkPolicy vs Calico-as-CNI vs Calico-only
  CRDs (GlobalNetworkPolicy, HostEndpoint, DNS egress)
- Falco: deploying and operating it vs authoring escape rules
- container escape: tool-agnostic runtime signals vs Falco rule syntax vs
  static posture audit vs offensive breakout
- Trivy: all-target platform and operator vs single-image scan
- Docker: images and Dockerfiles vs daemon.json vs the CIS audit script

Also replaces the templated "When to Use" boilerplate in these files,
including bullets that only restated the skill's own name.

Worst pair (Pod Security Standards vs Pod Security Admission) drops from
0.77 cosine to below the 0.45 threshold. Repo-wide: colliding pairs
60 -> 56, skills involved 105 -> 94.
2026-08-23 17:15:30 +02:00

2.6 KiB

name, description, domain, subdomain, tags, version, author, license, nist_csf, mitre_attack
name description domain subdomain tags version author license nist_csf mitre_attack
analyzing-kubernetes-audit-logs Parses Kubernetes API server audit logs (JSON lines) to detect exec-into-pod, secret access, RBAC modifications, privileged pod creation, and anonymous API access, and builds SIEM detection rules from the event patterns. Use when investigating a suspected cluster compromise, reconstructing what an attacker did through the API server, or writing Kubernetes-specific detection content. Keywords: audit policy, audit log, kube-apiserver, exec into pod, RBAC change, anonymous access, detection rules. Do not use for syscall-level detection inside a running container - use detecting-container-runtime-threats-with-falco. ' cybersecurity container-security
kubernetes-security
container-security
audit-log-analysis
rbac
privilege-escalation
k8s-api-server
threat-detection
1.0 mahipal Apache-2.0
PR.PS-01
PR.IR-01
ID.AM-08
DE.CM-01
T1610
T1613
T1078
T1552.007

Analyzing Kubernetes Audit Logs

When to Use

  • When investigating security incidents that require analyzing kubernetes audit logs
  • When building detection rules or threat hunting queries for this domain
  • When SOC analysts need structured procedures for this analysis type
  • When validating security monitoring coverage for related attack techniques

Prerequisites

  • Familiarity with container security concepts and tools
  • Access to a test or lab environment for safe execution
  • Python 3.8+ with required dependencies installed
  • Appropriate authorization for any testing activities

Instructions

Parse Kubernetes audit log files (JSON lines format) to detect security-relevant events including unauthorized access, privilege escalation, and data exfiltration.

import json

with open("/var/log/kubernetes/audit.log") as f:
    for line in f:
        event = json.loads(line)
        verb = event.get("verb")
        resource = event.get("objectRef", {}).get("resource")
        user = event.get("user", {}).get("username")
        if verb == "create" and resource == "pods/exec":
            print(f"Pod exec by {user}")

Key events to detect:

  1. pods/exec and pods/attach (shell into containers)
  2. secrets access (get/list/watch)
  3. clusterrolebindings creation (RBAC escalation)
  4. Privileged pod creation
  5. Anonymous or system:unauthenticated access

Examples

# Detect secret enumeration
if verb in ("get", "list") and resource == "secrets":
    print(f"Secret access: {user} -> {event['objectRef'].get('name')}")