T1552.007sub-technique of T1552 Unsecured Credentials

Container API

Containersnothing on this site yetT1552.007 on attack.mitre.org

Adversaries may gather credentials via APIs within a containers environment. APIs in these environments, such as the Docker API and Kubernetes APIs, allow a user to remotely manage their container resources and cluster components. An adversary may access the Docker API to collect logs that contain credentials to cloud, container, and various other resources in the environment.

MITRE ATT&CK 19.2, retrieved 2026-09-12

If this is happening now

1

Checklists and playbooks to open while the alert is still live.

Playbook for this stage

Cloud account compromise

Impossible travel, an unrecognised inbox rule, or a reported invoice-fraud attempt.

how MITRE says to see it

Detect Abuse of Container APIs for Credential Access

  • Detection correlates anomalous Docker or Kubernetes API requests with access to logs, secrets, or service accounts. Observes unauthorized use of `docker logs`, `kubectl get secrets`, or direct API calls to Kubernetes API server endpoints.

what reduces it

  • M1035 Limit Access to Resource Over Network. Limit communications with the container service to managed and secured channels, such as local Unix sockets or remote access via SSH. Require secure port access to communicate with the APIs over TLS by disabling unauthenticated access to the Docker API and Kubernetes API Server.
  • M1030 Network Segmentation. Deny direct remote access to internal systems through the use of network proxies, gateways, and firewalls.
  • M1018 User Account Management. Enforce authentication and role-based access control on the container API to restrict users to the least privileges required. When using Kubernetes, avoid giving users wildcard permissions or adding users to the `system:masters` group, and use `RoleBindings` rather than `ClusterRoleBindings` to limit user privileges to specific namespaces.
  • M1026 Privileged Account Management. Use the principle of least privilege for privileged accounts such as the service account in Kubernetes. For example, if a pod is not required to access the Kubernetes API, consider disabling the service account altogether.

the rest of T1552

The description, detection analytics and mitigations are reproduced from MITRE ATT&CK, version 19.2, under its terms of use. The checklists, hunts, labs and everything else linked here are this site’s.