services / Azure / Kubernetes service account impersonation (AKS fleet member)

The Kubernetes impersonate verb on ServiceAccount identities for a member cluster of an AKS fleet, allowing a caller to issue API requests as an arbitrary ServiceAccount.

Impersonating a ServiceAccount yields that identity's RBAC permissions, enabling lateral movement and privilege escalation up to cluster-admin.


Microsoft.​ContainerService/​fleets/​members/​serviceaccounts/​impersonate/​action

Impersonating a ServiceAccount lets an attacker act as that in-cluster identity and inherit its (potentially broader) RBAC, the canonical lateral-movement and privilege-escalation primitive.

Risks

Scope: CRITICAL

This privilege may grant access to sensitive data from a significant fraction of organizational functions, allow interruption of critical organizational services, or its exploit could lead to significant privilege escalation.

Links

  • https:​/​/​azure.​permissions.​cloud/​iam/​Microsoft.​ContainerService
  • https:​/​/​learn.​microsoft.​com/​en-​us/​azure/​role-​based-​access-​control/​resource-​provider-​operations
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