LoFP LoFP / controller upgrades, sidecar replacements, or client library version bumps change user agents and can produce a first-seen alert for known service accounts. confirm the new client is expected before treating as compromise.

Techniques

Sample rules

GKE Unusual Service Account Secret Access via New User Agent

Description

Detects the first successful GKE secrets.get by a pod service account from a previously unseen combination of service-account identity, user agent, and source IP. Controllers routinely read secrets with a stable client fingerprint; a new user agent or source for that service account could indicate a stolen token used outside the workload (for example curl, a custom script, or kubectl from an unexpected host).

Detection logic

data_stream.dataset:gcp.audit and service.name:k8s.io and event.outcome:success and
event.action:"io.k8s.core.v1.secrets.get" and
client.user.email:system\:serviceaccount\:* and
user_agent.original:(* and not *kubernetes/$Format*) and
source.ip:(* and not (127.0.0.1 or "::1"))