Security Cipher
Home Blog About Us
Resources β–Ό
βœ… Security Checklists Hub πŸ—ΊοΈ Penetration Testing Roadmap 🌐 Web Application Security Checklist πŸ€– OWASP Top 10 for LLM Applications 🧠 LLM AI Security Checklist πŸ› οΈ Security Tools 🎯 Penetration Testing Tricks πŸ“„ Secure Code Explain πŸ“– Vulnerability Explain ☁️ AWS Cloud Security Checklist
My Resume
Contact UsContact
New Security Checklists Hub 1,760+ controls across 18 categories Open checklists β†’
← Security Tools View on GitHub

kube-bench

Checks whether Kubernetes is deployed securely against the CIS Kubernetes Benchmark.

GitHub Release Downloads Docker Pulls Go Report Card Build Status License Coverage Status

kube-bench logo

kube-bench is a tool that checks whether Kubernetes is deployed securely by running the checks documented in the CIS Kubernetes Benchmark.

Tests are configured with YAML files, making this tool easy to update as test specifications evolve.

Kubernetes Bench for Security

CIS Scanning as part of Trivy and the Trivy Operator

Trivy, the all in one cloud native security scanner, can be deployed as a Kubernetes Operator inside a cluster. Both, the Trivy CLI, and the Trivy Operator support CIS Kubernetes Benchmark scanning among several other features.

Quick start

There are multiple ways to run kube-bench. You can run kube-bench inside a pod, but it will need access to the host's PID namespace in order to check the running processes, as well as access to some directories on the host where config files and other files are stored.

The supplied job.yaml file can be applied to run the tests as a job. For example:

$ kubectl apply -f job.yaml
job.batch/kube-bench created

$ kubectl get pods
NAME                      READY   STATUS              RESTARTS   AGE
kube-bench-j76s9   0/1     ContainerCreating   0          3s

# Wait for a few seconds for the job to complete
$ kubectl get pods
NAME                      READY   STATUS      RESTARTS   AGE
kube-bench-j76s9   0/1     Completed   0          11s

# The results are held in the pod's logs
kubectl logs kube-bench-j76s9
[INFO] 1 Master Node Security Configuration
[INFO] 1.1 API Server
...

For more information and different ways to run kube-bench see documentation

Please Note

  1. kube-bench implements the CIS Kubernetes Benchmark as closely as possible. Please raise issues here if kube-bench is not correctly implementing the test as described in the Benchmark. To report issues in the Benchmark itself (for example, tests that you believe are inappropriate), please join the CIS community.

  2. There is not a one-to-one mapping between releases of Kubernetes and releases of the CIS benchmark. See CIS Kubernetes Benchmark support to see which releases of Kubernetes are covered by different releases of the benchmark.

By default, kube-bench will determine the test set to run based on the Kubernetes version running on the machine.

  • see the following documentation on Running kube-bench for more details.

Contributing

Kindly read Contributing before contributing. We welcome PRs and issue reports.

Roadmap

Going forward we plan to release updates to kube-bench to add support for new releases of the CIS Benchmark. Note that these are not released as frequently as Kubernetes releases.

Press Escape to close the search panel.

Donate

Buy me a Coffee

Penetration Testing Services - Fiverr

Buy me a Coffee

Penetration Testing Services

penetration Testing Services

Web Application Security Quiz

Web Application Security Quiz

Daily Bug Bounty Writeups - Twitter

Daily Bug Bounty Writeups

Download our Latest Android Application

Guide for Penetration Testing

Daily Bug Bounty Writeups - Telegram

Daily Bug Bounty Writeups

Author

Piyush
Senior Product Security Engineer

Ethical Hacker || Penetration Tester || Gamer || Blogger || Application Security Engineer

READ ARTICLE

Donate

Buy me a Coffee

Recent Posts

  • The CVE Flood Is a Lie: How to Hunt When AI Dumps 36% More Bugs But Exploitation Only Grows 10%
    The CVE Flood Is a Lie: How to Hunt When AI Dumps 36% More Bugs But Exploitation Only Grows 10%
    August 25, 2026/
    0 Comments
  • RAG Poisoning in 2026: A Practical Playbook for Hacking Answers Through Your Knowledge Base
    RAG Poisoning in 2026: A Practical Playbook for Hacking Answers Through Your Knowledge Base
    August 19, 2026/
    0 Comments
  • Secrets That Pay: Hunting Valid Credentials with TruffleHog for Bug Bounties
    Secrets That Pay: Hunting Valid Credentials with TruffleHog for Bug Bounties
    August 13, 2026/
    0 Comments

Follow Us

SecurityCipher

Practical security guides, vulnerability deep-dives, and hands-on resources for bug bounty hunters and penetration testers.

Useful Links

  • Security Checklists
  • Cybersecurity Jobs
  • Blogs
  • About
  • Contact
Β© 2026 SecurityCipher. All rights reserved. Privacy Policies Β· Terms & Conditions