Understanding Resource Injection Vulnerabilities in Kubernetes Ecosystems

Abstract

Cloud-native technologies have revolutionized application development, with Kubernetes emerging as the de facto standard platform for containerization and orchestration. Kubernetes manages applications through API objects called resources, where users declare desired states via resource definitions that are processed by controllers to reconcile system discrepancies. However, this resource-based architecture introduces resource injection vulnerabilities, where controllers perform privileged operations using user-controllable fields without adequate validation. Attackers can exploit these weaknesses by injecting malicious content into resource fields to achieve unauthorized access and privilege escalation.In this paper, we conduct the first comprehensive study on 125 resource injection vulnerabilities from 8,306 Kubernetes-related vulnerabilities across common databases. For all studied vulnerabilities, we investigate their vulnerable fields, root causes, privileged operations, exploitation conditions, and fixing strategies. Our study reveals many interesting findings that can guide the detection and mitigation of resource injection vulnerabilities, as well as the development of more secure cloud-native applications.