More Info:

Create and use minimally privileged Service accounts to run GKE cluster nodes instead of using the Compute Engine default Service account. Unnecessary permissions could be abused in the case of a node compromise.

Risk Level

Critical

Address

Security, Operational Excellence, Best Practice

Compliance Standards

HITRUST, SOC2, NISTCSF, PCIDSS

Triage and Remediation

Remediation

To remediate the misconfiguration “Ensure GKE Clusters Are Not Using Default Service Account” in GCP using GCP console, please follow the below steps:

Step 1: Login to GCP console (https://console.cloud.google.com/).

Step 2: Navigate to Kubernetes Engine and select the cluster that is using the default service account.

Step 3: Click on the “Edit” button at the top of the page.

Step 4: Scroll down to the “Node Pools” section and click on the “default-pool” node pool.

Step 5: Under the “Node pool details” section, click on the “Edit” button.

Step 6: Scroll down to the “Security” section and expand it.

Step 7: Under the “Service account” section, select “Create a new service account”.

Step 8: In the “Service account name” field, enter a name for the new service account.

Step 9: In the “Service account ID” field, enter a unique ID for the new service account.

Step 10: Click on the “Save” button to save the changes.

Step 11: Repeat the above steps for all the node pools that are using the default service account.

Step 12: Once all the node pools have been updated, click on the “Save” button at the bottom of the page to save the changes to the cluster.

By following these steps, the misconfiguration “Ensure GKE Clusters Are Not Using Default Service Account” will be remediated for GCP using GCP console.

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