Secrets used as environment variables

Description

Secrets can be mounted as data volumes or exposed as environment variables and used by a container in a pod to interact with external systems on your behalf. Secrets can also be used by other parts of the system, without being directly exposed to the pod. Benefits for storing secrets as files include: setting file permissions, projects of secret keys to specific paths, and consuming secret values from volumes.

Code Example

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: <pod name>
spec:
  containers:
  - name: <container name>
    image: <image>
    env:
      - name: <env name>
        valueFrom:
-         secretKeyRef:
-           name: <secret key name>
-           key: <secret key>

Remediation

Kubernetes

• Resource: Container
• Arguments: env:valueFrom:secretKeyRef - uses a secret in an environment variable in a Pod envFrom:secretRef - defines all of the secret's data as the container environment variables

Rule Details

Field	Value
ID	IAC-1113
Severity	LOW
IaC Type	Kubernetes
Frameworks	Kubernetes,
Checkov ID	CKV_K8S_35

References

• Checkov Rule

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