| name | benchmarking-kubernetes-with-kube-bench |
| description | Run kube-bench (Aqua Security) against a Kubernetes cluster's control-plane, kubelet, and node configuration to check compliance with the CIS Kubernetes Benchmark and remediate PASS/FAIL/WARN findings. Use when establishing a security baseline for a new cluster, performing periodic hardening audits, validating remediation after configuration changes, or gathering compliance evidence for SOC 2/PCI DSS. |
| domain | cybersecurity |
| subdomain | container-security |
| tags | ["kubernetes","kube-bench","cis-benchmark","container-security","hardening","compliance","cluster-security"] |
| version | 1.0 |
| author | mahipal |
| license | Apache-2.0 |
| nist_csf | ["PR.PS-01"] |
| mitre_attack | ["T1610"] |
Benchmarking Kubernetes with kube-bench
Overview
kube-bench (by Aqua Security) is an open-source tool that checks whether a Kubernetes cluster is deployed securely by running the checks documented in the CIS Kubernetes Benchmark. It inspects the control-plane components (API server, controller manager, scheduler, etcd), the kubelet and worker-node configuration, and cluster-wide policy settings, then reports each check as PASS, FAIL, WARN, or INFO with a remediation recommendation drawn directly from the CIS guidance. Tests are configuration-driven YAML files, so kube-bench tracks new Kubernetes versions and benchmark revisions and supports managed distributions (EKS, GKE, AKS, ACK, OpenShift, RKE, k3s).
Hardening a cluster against the CIS Benchmark directly reduces the attack surface for T1610 (Deploy Container), where an adversary deploys a container to execute code or evade defenses — for example by abusing privileged containers, host namespaces, anonymous API access, or insecure kubelet settings that an unhardened cluster leaves exposed.
kube-bench can run as a standalone binary on a node, inside a container, or — most commonly — as a Kubernetes Job whose pod has the host filesystem mounted so it can read the relevant config files. Output is available as human-readable text, JSON, JUnit, or AWS Security Finding Format (ASFF) and can be pushed to a PostgreSQL database for trend tracking.
When to Use
- When establishing a security baseline for a new Kubernetes cluster against the CIS Kubernetes Benchmark.
- When performing periodic compliance audits of control-plane and node hardening.
- When validating remediation after applying hardening changes (re-run to confirm checks now PASS).
- When integrating cluster compliance scanning into CI/CD or a continuous monitoring pipeline.
- When preparing evidence for SOC 2, PCI DSS, or internal hardening compliance.
Prerequisites
- Access to the cluster: either SSH access to a control-plane/worker node (binary mode) or
kubectl with permission to create Jobs (in-cluster mode).
- Knowledge of the cluster's Kubernetes version (kube-bench auto-detects, or specify with
--version / --benchmark).
- Install kube-bench (Aqua Security official methods):
KB_VERSION=0.10.7
curl -L -o kube-bench.tgz \
"https://github.com/aquasecurity/kube-bench/releases/download/v${KB_VERSION}/kube-bench_${KB_VERSION}_linux_amd64.tar.gz"
tar -xzf kube-bench.tgz
sudo kube-bench /usr/local/bin/
-R cfg /etc/kube-bench/cfg
go install github.com/aquasecurity/kube-bench@latest
docker run -- --pid=host \
-v /etc:/etc:ro -v /var:/var:ro \
-t docker.io/aquasec/kube-bench:latest run --targets node
kube-bench version
