Privilege Escalation KCSA Practice Questions (Page 1)

Questions 1–5

1. 1foundation · easy

   Which of the following is a technique an attacker might use to break out of a container?

   • AUsing kubectl exec to run commands inside the container.
   • BExploiting a vulnerability in the Linux kernel that is shared between the container and the host.
   • CChanging the container's restart policy to Always.
   • DDeleting the container's log files to hide traces.
   Reveal Solution Discussion Select an answer first
2. 2foundation · easy

   Which pod security context setting is most directly associated with allowing a container to gain privileges on the host node?

   • AallowPrivilegeEscalation: false
   • BreadOnlyRootFilesystem: true
   • CrunAsNonRoot: true
   • Dprivileged: true
   Reveal Solution Discussion Select an answer first
4. 3foundation · easy

   How can an attacker who gains access to a node escalate to cluster-admin?

   • ABy reading the node's /etc/hosts file to find the API server address.
   • BBy using the kubelet's credentials to authenticate to the API server and create a cluster-admin binding.
   • CBy restarting the kubelet service to reset its permissions.
   • DBy deleting the node object from the cluster.
   Reveal Solution Discussion Select an answer first
5. 4application · medium

   A cluster administrator wants to enforce a policy that prevents pods from running with `privileged: true`, `hostPID: true`, or `hostNetwork: true`. Which built-in Kubernetes mechanism should be used?

   • AUse a ValidatingAdmissionPolicy or Pod Security Admission with the `restricted` policy.
   • BApply a NetworkPolicy that blocks traffic from privileged pods.
   • CSet `automountServiceAccountToken: false` on all pods.
   • DConfigure the kubelet to reject privileged pods via `--allow-privileged=false`.
   Reveal Solution Discussion Select an answer first
6. 5expert · hard

   An attacker has compromised a container running on a node. The container has `CAP_SYS_ADMIN` capability. The attacker wants to gain cluster-admin privileges. Which sequence of actions best describes a realistic privilege escalation path?

   • AExploit a kernel vulnerability to gain root on the host, then use `kubectl` to create a cluster-admin binding.
   • BEscape the container using the capability to mount the host filesystem, then read the kubelet client certificate and use it to create a pod with a privileged security context.
   • CUse the capability to directly modify the API server's etcd data to add a new cluster-admin user.
   • DUse the capability to read the node's cloud provider credentials and create a new node with a privileged pod.
   Reveal Solution Discussion Select an answer first