Profile applicability: Level 2
Avoid ClusterRoleBindings nor RoleBindings with the user
system:anonymous
.Kubernetes assigns user
system:anonymous
to API server requests that have no authentication information provided. Binding
a role to user system:anonymous
gives any unauthenticated user the permissions granted by that role and is strongly
discouraged.![]() |
NoteNo
clusterrolebindings nor rolebindings with user system:anonymous . |
Impact
Unauthenticated users will have privileges and permissions associated with roles associated
with the configured bindings.
Care should be taken before removing any
clusterrolebindings
or rolebindings
from the environment to ensure they were not required for operation of the cluster.
Use a more specific and authenticated user for cluster operations.Audit
Both CusterRoleBindings and RoleBindings should be audited. Use the following command
to confirm there are no
ClusterRoleBindings
to system:anonymous
:$ kubectl get clusterrolebindings -o json | jq -r '["Name"], ["-----"], (.items[] | select((.subjects | length) > 0) | select(any(.subjects[]; .name == "system:anonymous")) | [.metadata.namespace, .metadata.name]) | @tsv'
There should be no
ClusterRoleBindings
listed. If any bindings exist, review their permissions with the following command
and reassess their privilege: $ kubectl get clusterrolebinding [CLUSTER_ROLE_BINDING_NAME] -o json \ | jq ' .roleRef.name +" " + .roleRef.kind' \ | sed -e 's/"//g' \ | xargs -l bash -c 'kubectl get $1 $0 -o yaml'
Confirm that there are no
RoleBindings
including the system:anonymous
user:$ kubectl get rolebindings -A -o json \ | jq -r '["Namespace", "Name"], ["---------", "-----"], (.items[] | select((.subjects | length) > 0) | select(any(.subjects[]; .name == "system:anonymous")) | [.metadata.namespace, .metadata.name]) | @tsv'
There should be no
RoleBindings
listed. If any bindings exist, review their permissions with the following command and reassess
their privilege.
$ kubectl get rolebinding [ROLE_BINDING_NAME] --namespace [ROLE_BINDING_NAMESPACE] -o json \ | jq ' .roleRef.name +" " + .roleRef.kind' \ | sed -e 's/"//g' \ | xargs -l bash -c 'kubectl get $1 $0 -o yaml --namespace [ROLE_BINDING_NAMESPACE]'
Remediation
Identify all
clusterrolebindings
and rolebindings
to the user system:anonymous. Check if they are used and review the permissions associated with the binding using
the commands in the Audit section above or refer to GKE documentation.
Strongly consider replacing unsafe bindings with an authenticated, user-defined group.
Where possible, bind to non-default, user-defined groups with least-privilege roles.
If there are any unsafe bindings to the user
system:anonymous
, proceed to delete them after consideration for cluster operations with only necessary,
safer bindings.kubectl delete clusterrolebinding [CLUSTER_ROLE_BINDING_NAME] kubectl delete rolebinding [ROLE_BINDING_NAME] --namespace [ROLE_BINDING_NAMESPACE]