CVE-2018-18264 Privilege escalation through Kubernetes dashboard

A vulnerability identified as CVE-2018-18264 in the Kubernetes dashboard allows privilege escalation by enabling unauthenticated users to access secrets, potentially leading to unauthorized access to sensitive data. This flaw permits users to bypass authentication and exploit the dashboard service account credentials to access resources like the kubernetes-dashboard-certs secret, which could be used to impersonate the dashboard service and conduct further attacks. Although Kubernetes dashboard v1.10.1 addresses this vulnerability by disabling the skip login feature, monitoring tools like Sysdig Falco and Kubernetes Audit can help detect similar exploits by generating alerts for unauthorized access attempts. These tools offer the capability to create rules that trigger notifications for suspicious activities, thus enhancing security by identifying and responding to privilege escalation attempts. The challenge lies in detecting such exploits since the Kubernetes API server authorizes events initiated by the dashboard, even if they originate from unauthorized sessions, underscoring the need for robust runtime security measures.