Lab 03 — Kubernetes Secrets Assessment

Mission Information

Property	Value
Lab Name	Kubernetes Secrets Assessment
Module	Module 05 — Kubernetes Offensive Security
Difficulty	Intermediate
Estimated Time	90–120 Minutes
Lab Type	Guided Hands-on Lab
Platform	Kubernetes (Minikube / Kind / Amazon EKS / Azure AKS / Google GKE)
Prerequisites	Lessons 01–05 and Labs 01–02
Skills Covered	Kubernetes Secrets, Service Accounts, Secret Management, Credential Governance, Data Protection

Mission Brief

CloudNova Technologies has been engaged by a global financial organization to perform an enterprise Kubernetes security assessment.

During the initial assessment, the consulting team discovered hundreds of Kubernetes Secrets distributed across multiple namespaces supporting databases, APIs, cloud services, CI/CD pipelines, monitoring platforms, and production workloads.

Management is concerned that sensitive credentials may be overly exposed, poorly governed, or accessible by unauthorized workloads.

Your objective is to assess the organization’s Secrets management implementation, evaluate access controls, and determine whether sensitive information is adequately protected throughout its lifecycle.

This engagement focuses on security assessment and governance, not credential extraction.

Learning Objectives

By completing this lab, you will learn how to:

Inventory Kubernetes Secrets.
Classify sensitive information.
Review Secret ownership.
Assess Service Account token security.
Review RBAC permissions affecting Secrets.
Evaluate encryption and lifecycle management.
Review Secret governance.
Produce consulting-quality findings.

Enterprise Scenario

The customer operates a large Kubernetes platform hosting:

Banking Applications
Customer Portals
Payment APIs
Internal Microservices
CI/CD Pipelines
Monitoring Platforms
Security Tools

These workloads rely heavily on Kubernetes Secrets.

Your consulting team must determine whether credentials are managed securely and whether attackers could obtain unauthorized access through weak Secret governance.

Lab Architecture

Enterprise Kubernetes Cluster

        │

Namespaces

        │

Applications

        │

Kubernetes Secrets

├── Database Credentials
├── API Keys
├── TLS Certificates
├── Service Account Tokens
├── Registry Credentials
├── OAuth Tokens

        │

RBAC

        │

Authorized Workloads

Mission Tasks

Task 01 — Inventory Kubernetes Secrets

Objective

Create a complete inventory of all Secrets.

Document:

Secret Name
Namespace
Secret Type
Application Owner
Business Purpose

Classify each Secret according to its business function.

Task 02 — Classify Sensitive Data

Identify Secrets containing:

Database credentials
API Keys
OAuth Tokens
Cloud credentials
TLS Certificates
Registry credentials
Application passwords
Service Account tokens

Determine which assets represent the highest business risk.

Task 03 — Review Secret Ownership

For every Secret identify:

Business owner
Technical owner
Application
Namespace
Last modification date
Operational purpose

Review whether ownership has been documented.

Task 04 — Review Service Account Tokens

Assess:

Service Accounts
Mounted tokens
Namespace
Assigned permissions
Workload association

Determine whether Service Accounts have only the permissions required to perform their intended business function.

Task 05 — Review RBAC Permissions

Review identities capable of accessing Secrets.

Assess:

Roles
ClusterRoles
RoleBindings
ClusterRoleBindings

Determine:

Who can read Secrets?
Who can modify Secrets?
Are permissions justified?

Task 06 — Review Secret Lifecycle

Evaluate:

Secret creation
Rotation
Expiration
Revocation
Deletion

Determine whether a formal credential lifecycle exists.

Task 07 — Review Encryption

Assess:

Encryption at Rest
Encryption in Transit
etcd Encryption
Key Management
Certificate Management

Verify that sensitive information is protected throughout its lifecycle.

Task 08 — Review Monitoring & Auditing

Review:

Kubernetes Audit Logs
Secret access logging
Administrative actions
Monitoring alerts
SIEM integration

Determine whether unauthorized Secret access would be detected.

Task 09 — Identify Security Findings

Document findings such as:

Excessive Secret access
Long-lived credentials
Weak RBAC permissions
Missing Secret rotation
Shared credentials
Weak ownership
Missing encryption
Excessive Service Account permissions
Missing monitoring
Governance gaps

Task 10 — Prepare Enterprise Secrets Assessment Report

Produce:

Secret Inventory
Identity Review
RBAC Assessment
Governance Assessment
Risk Register
Executive Summary
Technical Recommendations

Expected Deliverables

Secret Inventory

Document:

Secret Name
Namespace
Secret Type
Business Owner
Risk Level

Identity Review

Review:

Service Accounts
Administrative Accounts
Secret Consumers
RBAC Permissions

Governance Assessment

Evaluate:

Ownership
Lifecycle Management
Rotation Process
Approval Process
Compliance

Security Findings

Document:

Finding
Risk Rating
Business Impact
Technical Impact
Evidence
Recommendation
Priority

Executive Summary

Summarize:

Secrets Management Maturity
Identity Governance
High-Risk Findings
Recommended Improvements

Success Criteria

You have successfully completed this lab when you can:

Build a complete Secret inventory.
Classify sensitive business information.
Review Service Account security.
Validate RBAC permissions.
Assess Secret governance.
Produce a professional enterprise assessment report.

Skills Gained

After completing this lab, you will be able to:

Assess Kubernetes Secrets management.
Evaluate credential governance.
Review Service Account security.
Assess encryption and lifecycle management.
Identify enterprise credential risks.
Produce consulting-quality security findings.

Challenge Exercises

If time permits:

Compare Secret management across production and development namespaces.
Identify workloads using high-privilege Service Accounts.
Review credential rotation practices.
Evaluate external secret management integrations.
Prioritize remediation activities based on business impact.

Lab Summary

In this lab, you assessed Kubernetes Secrets management using the GoHackersCloud Enterprise Assessment Methodology.

You inventoried sensitive information, reviewed Service Accounts, validated RBAC permissions, assessed credential governance, and identified enterprise security risks. These activities closely reflect the work performed by Cloud Security Consultants and Kubernetes Security Engineers during real-world enterprise security assessments.

Next Lab

➡️ Lab 04 — Container Escape Assessment

In the next lab, you will assess container isolation, review privileged workloads, evaluate runtime security controls, identify container escape risks, and recommend workload hardening strategies using the GoHackersCloud Enterprise Kubernetes Security Assessment Framework.