CHAIN-122 — AKS node pool SSH enabled

Summary

Severity: High · Likelihood: Medium · Logic: ALL

Why this chain matters

AKS node pool VMs have SSH enabled and accept password auth. SSH is meant for on-call debugging; the node has full kubelet credentials and can impersonate the cluster to the control plane.

Component rules

This chain fires when its trigger conditions are met by the following rules. Click any rule to see its detection logic and compliance mappings.

Rule ID	Role
zt_wl_006	Trigger
zt_net_001	Trigger

Attack walkthrough

Step 1 — Brute-force SSH against node public IP or peered subnet.

Actor: Attacker
MITRE ATT&CK: T1110
Enabled by: zt_wl_006

Attacker gain: Node shell.

Step 2 — Read /etc/kubernetes/kubelet.conf; impersonate kubelet.

Actor: Attacker
MITRE ATT&CK: T1552.001
Enabled by: zt_net_001

Attacker gain: Cluster-wide pod create/delete.

Blast radius

Initial access	SSH to node.
Max privilege	Cluster admin via kubelet.
Data at risk	Every pod secret
Services at risk	Entire AKS cluster

How the logic works

The chain fires only when every rule above has at least one finding in the current scan. Missing any one rule breaks the chain — so remediating any single step disrupts the attack path.