Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills/skills/implementing-kubernetes-pod-security-standards/references/standards.md

Standards Reference - Kubernetes Pod Security Standards

Kubernetes Pod Security Standards (PSS) v1.31

Privileged Profile

• No restrictions applied
• Used for: kube-system, monitoring agents, CNI plugins, storage drivers

Baseline Profile Controls

Control	Policy
HostProcess	Must be false
Host Namespaces	hostNetwork, hostPID, hostIPC must be false
Privileged Containers	Must be false
Capabilities	Cannot add beyond: AUDIT_WRITE, CHOWN, DAC_OVERRIDE, FOWNER, FSETID, KILL, MKNOD, NET_BIND_SERVICE, SETFCAP, SETGID, SETPCAP, SETUID, SYS_CHROOT
HostPath Volumes	Must not be used
Host Ports	Must not define hostPort
AppArmor	Must not set to unconfined
SELinux	type must be container_t, container_init_t, or container_kvm_t; user/role must not be set
/proc Mount Type	Must be Default
Seccomp	Must not set to Unconfined
Sysctls	Must only use safe sysctls

Restricted Profile Controls (in addition to Baseline)

Control	Policy
Volume Types	Only: configMap, csi, downwardAPI, emptyDir, ephemeral, persistentVolumeClaim, projected, secret
Privilege Escalation	allowPrivilegeEscalation must be false
Running as Non-root	runAsNonRoot must be true
Running as Non-root User	runAsUser must be non-zero
Seccomp	Must be RuntimeDefault or Localhost
Capabilities	Must drop ALL; may only add NET_BIND_SERVICE

CIS Kubernetes Benchmark v1.8

Section 5: Policies

• 5.1: RBAC and Service Accounts
• 5.2: Pod Security Standards
  • 5.2.1: Ensure PSA is not set to Privileged on non-system namespaces
  • 5.2.2: Minimize admission of privileged containers
  • 5.2.3: Minimize admission of containers wanting to share host process ID namespace
  • 5.2.4: Minimize admission of containers wanting to share host IPC namespace
  • 5.2.5: Minimize admission of containers wanting to share host network namespace
  • 5.2.6: Minimize admission of containers with allowPrivilegeEscalation
  • 5.2.7: Minimize admission of root containers
  • 5.2.8: Minimize admission of containers with NET_RAW capability
  • 5.2.9: Minimize admission of containers with added capabilities
  • 5.2.10: Minimize admission of containers with capabilities assigned
  • 5.2.11: Minimize admission of containers with HostProcess
  • 5.2.12: Minimize admission of HostPath volumes
  • 5.2.13: Minimize admission of containers with unrestricted Seccomp profile

NSA/CISA Kubernetes Hardening Guide

Pod Security Recommendations

• Use PSA in enforce mode for production namespaces
• Set restricted profile as default for all non-system namespaces
• Require seccomp profiles on all pods
• Prevent privileged containers in all workload namespaces
• Require non-root user for all containers
• Drop all capabilities and only add NET_BIND_SERVICE if needed

MITRE ATT&CK for Containers

Techniques Prevented by Restricted Profile

Technique	PSS Control
T1611 - Escape to Host	Blocks privileged, hostPID, hostNetwork
T1610 - Deploy Container	Blocks privileged containers
T1053 - Scheduled Task	Blocks host namespace access
T1548 - Abuse Elevation Control	Blocks allowPrivilegeEscalation