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Ensure that the kubelet configuration file ownership is set to root:root.

Risk Level

Low

Address

Security

Compliance Standards

  • APRA CPS 234 (Australia)
  • BSI C5 (Germany)
  • Brazil LGPD
  • CCPA / CPRA (California)
  • CIS Critical Security Controls v8
  • CIS OKE
  • CMMC 2.0
  • CSA Cloud Controls Matrix v4
  • DPDPA
  • Digital Operational Resilience Act (EU)
  • Essential 8
  • ISO/IEC 27017
  • ISO/IEC 27018
  • ISO/IEC 27701
  • KSA PDPL
  • MAS Technology Risk Management (Singapore)
  • MITRE ATT&CK (Cloud)
  • NIS2 Directive
  • NIST SP 800-171
  • NYDFS 23 NYCRR 500
  • SWIFT Customer Security Controls Framework
  • Sarbanes-Oxley IT General Controls
  • UK NCSC Cyber Assessment Framework

Triage and Remediation

Remediation

Manual Steps

  1. On every worker node, confirm the actual kubelet configuration file path and its current ownership:
  2. If the file exists and is not owned by root:root, change its ownership to root:root:
  3. (Optional but recommended) Ensure file permissions are not overly permissive (example: 600):
  4. Repeat steps 1–3 on each worker node in the cluster.
  5. Verification on every worker node (adapted from the audit command, using the actual file path):
    The output must be:
kubectl cannot modify host-level file ownership, including /var/lib/kubelet/config.yaml; this must be corrected directly on every worker node via the operating system. Use the guidance in the Manual Steps section to adjust file ownership and then re-run the audit command to verify.

Additional Reading: