Performing Kubernetes Cis Benchmark With Kube Bench

What it does

When your agent uses it

• Conducting a scheduled compliance audit
• Triaging kube-bench results
• Deciding which controls are not applicable on EKS
• Producing hardening evidence for an auditor

Example prompts

• “Use the performing-kubernetes-cis-benchmark-with-kube-bench skill to turn kube-bench output into a finished CIS Kubernetes Benchmark audit…”
• “/performing-kubernetes-cis-benchmark-with-kube-bench”

Requirements

• Python 3

Workflow steps

7 steps, taken from the first numbered list in SKILL.md.

1. 1Run kube-bench before and after cluster provisioning
2. 2Schedule weekly scans via CronJob for drift detection
3. 3Export JSON for SIEM/compliance reporting
4. 4Fix FAIL items first, then address WARN items
5. 5Use benchmark profiles matching your Kubernetes distribution
6. 6Track score over time to measure security posture improvement
7. 7Combine with admission controllers to prevent drift

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 54a7988. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

• Tool permissions

  Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

  From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

• Runs code

  Ships 2 files in scripts/ (Python), which the agent can run.

  Shell commands in SKILL.md call:

  • kubectl
  • curl
  • jq

  From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

• Network

  Hosts in commands or code, which the agent is likely to contact:

  • raw.githubusercontent.com
  • github.com

  From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

• Credentials

  Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

  From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Performing Kubernetes Cis Benchmark With Kube Bench loads about 1.7k tokens when it runs, and up to ~3k if it reads all its reference files. Until then it costs about 175 tokens; SKILL.md has 292 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it

~175

When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches

~1.7k

With references · SKILL.md plus every file in references/, read only if the agent opens them

~3k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

• NoteRuns commands with sudoSKILL.md:61

  sudo mv kube-bench /usr/local/bin/

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); the scripts in this folder are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills at commit 54a7988, republished under its Apache-2.0 licence (© mukul975). 292 words, ~1,712 tokens.

name

performing-kubernetes-cis-benchmark-with-kube-bench

description

Turns kube-bench output into a finished CIS Kubernetes Benchmark audit: interpreting PASS/FAIL/WARN per control, judging which failures are genuine on a managed cluster, writing remediation, and packaging evidence for SOC 2 or PCI DSS. Use when conducting a scheduled compliance audit, triaging kube-bench results, deciding which controls are not applicable on EKS, GKE, or AKS, or producing hardening evidence for an auditor. Keywords: CIS Kubernetes Benchmark, control plane, remediation, compliance evidence, SOC 2, PCI DSS, managed cluster exception. Do not use for installing and running the tool - use benchmarking-kubernetes-with-kube-bench.

domain

cybersecurity

subdomain

container-security

tags

kube-bench, cis-benchmark, kubernetes, compliance, hardening, aquasecurity

version

1.0

author

mahipal

license

Apache-2.0

nist_csf

PR.PS-01, PR.IR-01, ID.AM-08, DE.CM-01

mitre_attack

T1610, T1611, T1609, T1525

# Binary installation
curl -L https://github.com/aquasecurity/kube-bench/releases/download/v0.7.3/kube-bench_0.7.3_linux_amd64.tar.gz | tar xz
sudo mv kube-bench /usr/local/bin/

# Run as Kubernetes Job
kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aquasecurity/kube-bench/main/job.yaml
kubectl logs job/kube-bench

# Run as a pod with host access
kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aquasecurity/kube-bench/main/job-master.yaml
kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aquasecurity/kube-bench/main/job-node.yaml

# Run all checks (auto-detects node type)
kube-bench run

# Run with JSON output
kube-bench run --json > kube-bench-results.json

# Run with JUnit output for CI
kube-bench run --junit > kube-bench-results.xml

# Control plane (master) checks
kube-bench run --targets master

# Worker node checks
kube-bench run --targets node

# etcd checks
kube-bench run --targets etcd

# Policies checks
kube-bench run --targets policies

# Control plane + etcd
kube-bench run --targets master,etcd

# Amazon EKS
kube-bench run --benchmark eks-1.2.0

# Google GKE
kube-bench run --benchmark gke-1.4.0

# Azure AKS
kube-bench run --benchmark aks-1.0

# Red Hat OpenShift
kube-bench run --benchmark rh-1.0

# Show only failures
kube-bench run --targets master | grep "\[FAIL\]"

# Run specific check
kube-bench run --check 1.2.1

# Run check group
kube-bench run --group 1.2

[INFO] 1 Control Plane Security Configuration
[INFO] 1.1 Control Plane Node Configuration Files
[PASS] 1.1.1 Ensure that the API server pod specification file permissions are set to 600
[PASS] 1.1.2 Ensure that the API server pod specification file ownership is set to root:root
[FAIL] 1.1.3 Ensure that the controller manager pod specification file permissions are set to 600
[WARN] 1.1.4 Ensure that the scheduler pod specification file permissions are set to 600

== Summary ==
45 checks PASS
12 checks FAIL
8 checks WARN
0 checks INFO

name: CIS Benchmark
on:
  schedule:
    - cron: '0 6 * * 1'

jobs:
  kube-bench:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Configure kubectl
        uses: azure/setup-kubectl@v3

      - name: Run kube-bench
        run: |
          kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aquasecurity/kube-bench/main/job.yaml
          kubectl wait --for=condition=complete job/kube-bench --timeout=120s
          kubectl logs job/kube-bench > kube-bench-report.txt

      - name: Check for failures
        run: |
          FAILS=$(grep -c "\[FAIL\]" kube-bench-report.txt || true)
          echo "Failed checks: $FAILS"
          if [ "$FAILS" -gt 0 ]; then
            echo "::warning::$FAILS CIS benchmark checks failed"
          fi

      - name: Upload report
        uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
        with:
          name: kube-bench-report
          path: kube-bench-report.txt

# /etc/kubernetes/manifests/kube-apiserver.yaml
spec:
  containers:
  - command:
    - kube-apiserver
    - --anonymous-auth=false

# /var/lib/kubelet/config.yaml
authentication:
  anonymous:
    enabled: false
  webhook:
    enabled: true

# Find roles with wildcard permissions
kubectl get clusterroles -o json | jq '.items[] | select(.rules[].resources[] == "*") | .metadata.name'

© mukul975, Apache-2.0. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

SKILL.md and 7 other files (scripts, references, assets) in skills/performing-kubernetes-cis-benchmark-with-kube-bench of mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills.

• SKILL.md
• LICENSE
• assets/template.md
• references/api-reference.md
• references/standards.md
• references/workflows.md
• scripts/agent.py
• scripts/process.py

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 54a7988