Misconfigured Containers in Amazon EKS: A Hidden Threat to AWS Credentials

How Kubernetes Privileges Can Open Doors to Credential Theft

A new report from Trend Micro has exposed a serious threat lurking in Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) environments: misconfigured containers with excessive privileges can leak sensitive AWS credentials through network-based exploits. Without strong security configurations, attackers can take advantage of vulnerabilities in how credentials are distributed to EKS pods—specifically through an unencrypted API endpoint used by the EKS Pod Identity agent. These missteps, if left unaddressed, provide two main vectors for attack: packet sniffing and API spoofing.

At the heart of this issue is a design flaw that leaves credential exchanges unencrypted over HTTP via a default metadata endpoint (169.254.170.23:80). When a container is granted elevated capabilities—such as CAP_NET_ADMIN or hostNetwork: true—it can observe or hijack this traffic, effectively stealing AWS credentials intended for legitimate workloads. These credentials are often not host-bound, making them a powerful weapon in the hands of adversaries who can reuse them across services and environments.

Trend

Amazon, for its part, has reaffirmed that this exposure falls under the “customer responsibility” side of their shared responsibility model. This places the onus on DevOps teams to harden container configurations, reduce privileges, monitor deployments, and ensure sensitive data isn’t transmitted in plaintext.

To mitigate the risk, security teams should implement the principle of least privilege, disable hostNetwork: true wherever possible, restrict Linux capabilities, and use runtime monitoring solutions like Amazon GuardDuty and Trend Vision One. AWS also recommends binding IAM roles tightly to specific contexts to limit the impact of any credential leakage. This situation underscores the urgent need for better container privilege management and stronger encryption standards in Kubernetes environments.

What Undercode Say:

Overprivileged Containers: A Long-Standing Risk Revisited

The use of excessive container privileges has long been recognized as a security concern in Kubernetes ecosystems. What makes this EKS-specific discovery more critical is its clear demonstration of how default settings can inadvertently facilitate credential theft. The default exposure of AWS credentials via an unencrypted local endpoint magnifies the risk even further, particularly in production environments where segmentation and policy enforcement are often weak or incomplete.

Network-Based Exploits: A Low Barrier for Attackers

Both the packet sniffing and spoofing techniques described by Trend Micro are notable for their simplicity. They require no root-level access to the host, no zero-day vulnerabilities, and no need to escape the container. By merely granting a container network-level visibility or basic interface manipulation capabilities, attackers gain access to sensitive AWS credentials. This dramatically lowers the bar for exploitation and suggests that even relatively unsophisticated attackers could compromise EKS environments if proper safeguards are not in place.

EKS Pod Identity Design Flaws

The EKS Pod Identity agent, while designed to simplify access to AWS services, introduces a severe weakness by relying on HTTP for credential transmission. In an era where HTTPS is the standard, exposing identity metadata over plaintext seems like a critical oversight. Attackers don’t even need to decrypt anything—they can simply listen to traffic or mimic the endpoint. This indicates a mismatch between usability and security that must be addressed by AWS with stronger defaults and clearer documentation.

The Illusion of Isolation

Kubernetes’ namespace and network policies often create a false sense of security. While containers appear to be isolated, enabling features like hostNetwork: true effectively breaks this model, turning a single pod into a node-level spy. Admins may unintentionally grant these permissions for troubleshooting or performance reasons, unaware of the security implications. Once misconfigured, a single malicious container can see and manipulate traffic far beyond its intended scope.

Shift-Left Security Is Not Enough

DevSecOps strategies often emphasize “shift-left” security—catching misconfigurations early in the CI/CD pipeline. However, this incident shows the limits of pre-deployment checks. Runtime behavior, especially dynamic aspects like network interactions and privilege escalation, must also be monitored in real time. Tools like GuardDuty and container-aware SIEMs are no longer optional but essential for modern Kubernetes security.

Shared Responsibility, Unshared Awareness

While AWS is technically correct to place this under customer responsibility, the broader ecosystem suffers from a lack of awareness. Many teams are unaware that enabling hostNetwork or granting CAP_NET_ADMIN could lead to a complete compromise of their AWS environment. Cloud providers must go beyond disclaimers and take a more active role in educating users and enforcing secure defaults.

IAM Role Binding and the Blast Radius Problem

Credential reuse becomes an especially dangerous issue when IAM roles are overly permissive or widely scoped. If one container’s credentials are compromised, and that role has broad privileges, attackers can cause major damage across services—launching new instances, reading S3 buckets, or even altering infrastructure. Role scoping and short-lived credentials can limit this blast radius, but they require strict discipline in configuration and key rotation practices.

A Call for Encrypted Credential Endpoints

The clearest and most actionable takeaway is that EKS credential services should not rely on plaintext HTTP under any circumstances. Encryption must be the default. AWS can and should update the EKS Pod Identity agent to enforce HTTPS, and also implement additional authentication checks to prevent spoofing. Until that happens, the risk remains real and present for thousands of EKS deployments.

🔍 Fact Checker Results:

✅ Verified: Containers with hostNetwork: true can intercept EKS metadata traffic.
✅ Verified: The EKS Pod Identity agent exposes credentials over an unencrypted HTTP endpoint.

❌ Not

📊 Prediction:

With increasing adoption of Kubernetes in cloud-native environments, attacks targeting EKS credential services will rise in frequency and sophistication. Cloud providers like AWS will likely be pressured into securing default configurations—especially encrypting credential APIs and enhancing detection mechanisms. Security vendors will also invest more in container-aware detection rules to respond to these evolving threat vectors. Expect runtime hardening and network encryption to become standard practices in 2025 and beyond. 🔐📈

References:

Reported By: cyberpress.org
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