4.2.13 Ensure that the Kubelet only makes use of Strong Cryptographic Ciphers

Information

Ensure that the Kubelet is configured to only use strong cryptographic ciphers.

Rationale:

TLS ciphers have had a number of known vulnerabilities and weaknesses, which can reduce the protection provided by them. By default Kubernetes supports a number of TLS ciphersuites including some that have security concerns, weakening the protection provided.

Impact:

Kubelet clients that cannot support modern cryptographic ciphers will not be able to make connections to the Kubelet API.

Solution

If using a Kubelet config file, edit the file to set TLSCipherSuites: to TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256,TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256,TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305,TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384,TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305,TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384,TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384,TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256 or to a subset of these values.
If using executable arguments, edit the kubelet service file /etc/kubernetes/kubelet.conf on each worker node and set the --tls-cipher-suites parameter as follows, or to a subset of these values.

--tls-cipher-suites=TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256,TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256,TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305,TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384,TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305,TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384,TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384,TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256

Based on your system, restart the kubelet service. For example:

systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl restart kubelet.service

Default Value:

By default the Kubernetes API server supports a wide range of TLS ciphers

Additional Information:

The list chosen above should be fine for modern clients. It's essentially the list from the Mozilla 'Modern cipher' option with the ciphersuites supporting CBC mode removed, as CBC has traditionally had a lot of issues

See Also

https://workbench.cisecurity.org/files/4111

Item Details

Category: CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT

References: 800-53|CM-6, 800-53|CM-7, CSCv7|5.1

Plugin: Unix

Control ID: 7e42ee9df6eaaf5fade4ace69b32cbca718d7fa06667d5fc62b61fb7373d0b4f