Cyberdudebivash

Introduction

Kubernetes (K8s) is the backbone of modern cloud-native apps. While it secures workloads with RBAC, API authentication, and network policies, many organizations misconfigure dashboards, leaving admin-level access wide open.

For bug bounty hunters and threat researchers, these misconfigured dashboards are gold mines — allowing everything from pod execution to secrets extraction.

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 What is the Kubernetes Dashboard?

• A web-based UI to manage Kubernetes clusters.
• Provides shortcuts for deployments, pods, services, and namespaces.
• Should always be restricted via RBAC + TLS + authentication.
• In the wild → many are exposed without auth or with weak tokens.

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 Common Misconfigurations

1. No Authentication Required
   • Dashboards exposed to the internet at /ui or /api/v1/namespaces/kube-system/services/https:kubernetes-dashboard:/proxy/.
   • Anyone with the link = admin.
2. Cluster-Admin Binding
   • Service account kubernetes-dashboard often bound to cluster-admin.
   • Once accessed → full control over workloads.
3. Exposed API Tokens
   • Secrets mounted into pods → easy token extraction.
4. Insecure HTTP
   • Dashboards running on HTTP instead of HTTPS → MITM attacks possible.

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 Exploitation Walkthrough

Step 1 — Recon

• Use tools like Shodan, Censys, ZoomEye to search:title:"Kubernetes Dashboard"

Step 2 — Access Dashboard

• If no login prompt → jackpot.
• If token required → try default tokens (kubernetes-dashboard service account).

Step 3 — Lateral Movement

• Deploy malicious pods. Example:apiVersion: v1 kind: Pod metadata: name: shell spec: containers: - name: shell image: alpine command: ["/bin/sh"] stdin: true tty: true
• This gives a reverse shell into the cluster.

Step 4 — Escalation

• Extract secrets:kubectl get secrets --all-namespaces
• Find cloud provider creds (AWS, GCP, Azure).

Step 5 — Exfiltration

• Access internal databases, config maps, and env vars.
• Often leads to RCE on production workloads.

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 Bug Bounty Value

Hunters can report:

• Sensitive data exposure (secrets, tokens, credentials).
• RCE via pod deployment.
• Privilege escalation across namespaces.
• Cloud account compromise (if cloud tokens found).

 Such findings are often High / Critical severity in bug bounty programs.

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 CyberDudeBivash Recommendations

• For Hunters:
  • Always check for /api/v1/ endpoints.
  • Use Burp + K8s tooling for enumeration.
  • Look for insecure service accounts.
• For Defenders:
  • Disable public dashboard access.
  • Enforce RBAC with least privilege.
  • Require OIDC / SSO auth for dashboards.
  • Rotate tokens regularly.
  • Audit with kube-bench and kube-hunter.

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Highlighted Keywords

This blog includes:

• Cloud-native penetration testing
• Kubernetes threat hunting
• Container security misconfiguration
• Zero Trust for cloud workloads
• SaaS vulnerability assessments
• API security posture management
• DevSecOps pipeline auditing

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 Conclusion

Kubernetes dashboards are often the weakest link in otherwise hardened cloud systems.

For bug bounty hunters → they’re a golden recon target.
For defenders → they’re a must-lock-down component.

In the AI-driven cloud era, one misconfigured dashboard = total cluster compromise.

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