Kubernetes STIG Version Comparison

There are 43 differences between versions v1 r9 (April 27, 2023) (the "left" version) and v1 r11 (Oct. 25, 2023) (the "right" version).

Check CNTR-K8-000600 was removed from the benchmark in the "right" version. The text below reflects the old wording.

This check's original form is available here.

Title

The Kubernetes API Server must have an audit policy set.

Check Content

Change to the /etc/kubernetes/manifests directory on the Kubernetes Control Plane. Run the command: grep -i audit-policy-file * If the audit-policy-file is not set, this is a finding.

Discussion

When Kubernetes is started, components and user services are started. For auditing startup events, and events for components and services, it is important that auditing begin on startup. Within Kubernetes, audit data for all components is generated by the API server. To enable auditing to begin, an audit policy must be defined for the events and the information to be stored with each event. It is also necessary to give a secure location where the audit logs are to be stored. If an audit log path is not specified, all audit data is sent to studio.

Fix

Edit the Kubernetes API Server manifest and set "--audit-policy-file" to the audit policy file. Note: If the API server is running as a Pod, then the manifest will also need to be updated to mount the host system filesystem where the audit policy file resides.