One of the most crucial components of every corporation is a strong role-based access control (RBAC) system as overly powerful users pose a risk to the company. RBAC decides if a specific entity is permitted to carry out a specific action on a specific resource. This is what controls access in your Kubernetes clusters.
Due to the complexity of the Kubernetes technology, it is challenging to scan and manage components on the Kubernetes cluster, and maintain rights for RBAC.
In this article, we will answer the following questions: What is Kubernetes RBAC? Why is RBAC necessary? What are the roles in Kubernetes? And how do you scan and visualize RBAC configuration?
What Is Kubernetes RBAC?
Kubernetes RBAC is an effective role-based management approach for granting precise accessibility to Kubernetes cluster resources. The security technique known as role-based access control (RBAC) bases each access authorization on the roles that have been given to each user. This mechanism makes it easy to limit applications or users’ access to specific namespaces, pods, and tasks inside a Kubernetes cluster.
RBAC policies in Kubernetes may be used to control a system user’s access permissions as well as service accounts.
Why Is RBAC Necessary?
One of the most crucial components of every corporation is a strong RBAC system as overly powerful users pose a risk to the company. Users’ should only be granted access to what is absolutely essential for them to perform their obligations.
Businesses can organize resources like pods, services, nodes, clusters, and their namespaces using Kubernetes’ RBAC. This creates distinct differences between the tasks and responsibilities of the each user following the integration of resources and the application of roles to them.
Be careful, though. This can quickly lead to a compliance catastrophe if improperly employed. RBAC tools such as Kubescape are vital for auditing and finding problematic permissions in Kubernetes.
Roles in Kubernetes
Kubernetes provides four RBAC-related items that may be used to configure cluster resource access permissions. They are Role, ClusterRole, RoleBinding, and ClusterRoleBinding, respectively. The Kubernetes API must be used to interact with these objects, as it does with all other Kubernetes objects.
Role vs ClusterRole
The major difference between the 2 are that Role is specific to a particular namespace, but ClusterRole is applicable to the whole cluster. Therefore, since ClusterRole is a part of the cluster, its name must be distinct. When it comes to Role, the same Role can exist in two separate namespaces.
Another difference that should be noted is that while ClusterRole can grant access to resources in any namespace, Role only permits access to resources that are located within the same namespace.
How to Keep a Check on RBAC Permissions
When you have a lot of Roles, it is tough and time-consuming to manually locate such a dangerous permission. There are several RBAC permissions audit solutions that assist in this process by scanning your whole cluster for any potentially dangerous permissions.
It’s also crucial to realize that an updated RBAC policy is necessary for RBAC to function effectively. This means frequent permission audits. Therefore, automating this process can greatly improve the quality of your RBAC and the efficiency with which it is managed.
Risky RBAC Permissions
Risky permissions are those that provide or have the potential to permit illegal access to the pod’s resources. For instance, if a person has edit authority, they may change their own role and access resources that they would not normally be able to. This can lead to a problem with compliance.
Best Practices for Setting RBAC Permissions
Make sure to develop an RBAC strategy by first identifying where you are now, then setting goals, and finally devising a plan to get from there to where you want to be.
A system should be in place that checks current RBAC and service account objects on a regular basis to see if they are up to date and, if not, removes those that are no longer required. Once again, the goal is to reduce your assault surface.
Always double-check your permissions to make sure the pod can do what you want it to and can’t do anything you don’t want it to. Even though it takes some effort, it is crucial to test these permissions because failing to do so could leave your system vulnerable.
Scanning and Visualizing RBAC Configuration Using Kubescape
Kubescape is an open-source tool that does several types of scanning, including risk assessment, security compliance, RBAC visualization, scanning for vulnerable pictures, and completing assessments on the YAML file. In addition, it displays issues clearly and understandably, allowing you to identify and resolve them quickly.
Install Kubescape
Installing Kubescape should be the first thing you do if you don’t already have it before running the analysis on your Kubernetes cluster. Use the steps listed below to install it. Copy the following command and paste it into your terminal.
curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/armosec/kubescape/master/install.sh | /bin/bash
Running a Scan on Kubescape
Reopen the terminal and paste the following command there to run the vulnerability scan.
Kubescape scan --submit --account=
Now, you need to enter the command in your terminal to see the results on the dashboard.
kubescape submit rbac --account
Additionally, you can log into the Kubescape dashboard and view the RBAC permission from there. As you can see, the command was successfully carried out, and the visualization is now visible on my dashboard.
We also have the option of running multiple queries with the help of a dropdown menu. These can categorize the roles to make our work easier. So, we can have a look at what permissions the users have.
It is easy to provide permissions to a certain role, a particular user, or a group of users. It includes a list of topics (such as people, groups, or service accounts), together with a description of the function being assigned to each of those topic categories. For this, ClusterRoleBinding provides access to all namespaces inside the cluster as opposed to RoleBinding, which only permits access to a single namespace.
Conclusion
Kubernetes RBAC is a simple way to manage resource access in a Kubernetes cluster. Through the use of the RBAC framework, the Kubernetes enables you to create role-based authorization for each user. However, administering RBAC in Kubernetes involves a lot of manual effort and has various difficulties. Automating this process using tools like Kubescape is the best way of achieving effective RBAC.