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Istio security restrictions bypass

The research was conducted during Summ3r 0f h4ck 2021 internship by r0binak and Forest1k. Based on Istio version 1.10.3 final_not

Detect Istio

When the adversary is inside the pod (or get RCE in app), he or she doesn't know that k8s work with Istio service mesh.

  • Use curl to detect Istio:

    curl localhost:15000

    In Istio 1.11 update, the Istiod debug interface is only accessible over localhost or with proper authentication (mTLS or JWT).

    curl -sS istiod.istio-system:15014/debug/endpointz
    curl -sS istiod.istio-system:15014/metrics
    curl -sS istiod.istio-system:15014/debug/registryz
    curl -sS istiod.istio-system:15014/debug/registryz?brief=1
    curl -sS istiod.istio-system:15014/debug/configz

    Istio 1.11 version added the HTTP endpoint localhost:15004/debug/ to the Istio sidecar agent. GET requests to that URL will be resolved by sending an xDS discovery “event” to istiod.

    curl localhost:15004/debug/endpointz
    curl -fsI http://localhost:15021/healthz/ready

    From within a workload container deployed with the Istio sidecar proxy, run the following command:

    curl -s http://localhost:15000/config_dump?include_cds

    Notice that the configuration for the sidecar proxy is returned.

  • create a pod with UID 1337:

    securityContext:
  runAsUser: 1337

    If your existing service account has sufficient rights to create a pod, create one with UID 1337. The new pod will not have a Istio sidecar.

  • Send DNS request:

    nslookup istiod.istio-system

    List all service DNS records with their corresponding svc IP:

    dig +short srv any.any.svc.cluster.local

Bypass Istio sidecar

Change iptables rules

When a container has CAP_NET_ADMIN capability granted, it can rewrite its own iptables rules and bypass the Envoy proxy.

Check iptables rules:

root@samplepod:~$ iptables -t nat -L
Chain PREROUTING (policy ACCEPT)
target     prot opt source               destination
ISTIO_INBOUND  tcp  --  anywhere             anywhere
Chain INPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target     prot opt source               destination
Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target     prot opt source               destination
ISTIO_OUTPUT  tcp  --  anywhere             anywhere
Chain POSTROUTING (policy ACCEPT)
target     prot opt source               destination
Chain ISTIO_INBOUND (1 references)
target     prot opt source               destination
RETURN     tcp  --  anywhere             anywhere             tcp dpt:15008
RETURN     tcp  --  anywhere             anywhere             tcp dpt:ssh
RETURN     tcp  --  anywhere             anywhere             tcp dpt:15090
RETURN     tcp  --  anywhere             anywhere             tcp dpt:15021
RETURN     tcp  --  anywhere             anywhere             tcp dpt:15020
ISTIO_IN_REDIRECT  tcp  --  anywhere             anywhere
Chain ISTIO_IN_REDIRECT (3 references)
target     prot opt source               destination
REDIRECT   tcp  --  anywhere             anywhere             redir ports 15006
Chain ISTIO_OUTPUT (1 references)
target     prot opt source               destination
RETURN     all  --  ip-127-0-0-6.eu-west-3.compute.internal  anywhere
ISTIO_IN_REDIRECT  all  --  anywhere            !localhost            owner UID match 1337
RETURN     all  --  anywhere             anywhere             ! owner UID match 1337
RETURN     all  --  anywhere             anywhere             owner UID match 1337
ISTIO_IN_REDIRECT  all  --  anywhere            !localhost            owner GID match 1337
RETURN     all  --  anywhere             anywhere             ! owner GID match 1337
RETURN     all  --  anywhere             anywhere             owner GID match 1337
RETURN     all  --  anywhere             localhost
ISTIO_REDIRECT  all  --  anywhere             anywhere
Chain ISTIO_REDIRECT (1 references)
target     prot opt source               destination
REDIRECT   tcp  --  anywhere             anywhere             redir ports 15001

We know that ISTIO_IN_REDIRECT is redirecting our inbound traffic to the proxy. All we need to do is to inject a rule that runs before it and RETURNS the packet early, skipping the redirect. We only want to trick Istio into not intercepting packets for port 7777. We still do want 8080 to go through the proxy, which is why we've selected a destination port of 7777.

Add new rule:

root@samplepod:~$ iptables -t nat -I PREROUTING -p tcp --dport 7777 -j RETURN

-I PREROUTING means to prepend the rule to the front of the PREROUTING chain. By using -I, we can ensure our rule runs before Istio's rule.

Check iptables rules again:

Chain PREROUTING (policy ACCEPT)
target     prot opt source               destination         
RETURN     tcp  --  anywhere             anywhere             tcp dpt:7777

If you want delete all rules:

root@samplepod:~$ iptables -t nat --flush
Chain PREROUTING (policy ACCEPT)
target     prot opt source               destination         

Chain INPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target     prot opt source               destination         

Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target     prot opt source               destination         

Chain POSTROUTING (policy ACCEPT)
target     prot opt source               destination         

Chain ISTIO_INBOUND (0 references)
target     prot opt source               destination         

Chain ISTIO_IN_REDIRECT (0 references)
target     prot opt source               destination         

Chain ISTIO_OUTPUT (0 references)
target     prot opt source               destination         

Chain ISTIO_REDIRECT (0 references)
target     prot opt source               destination

  • If you have the ability to create pods, add these annotations to disable the Istio sidecar:

    annotations:
      sidecar.istio.io/inject: "false" 
    annotations:
      proxy.istio.io/config: '{ "terminationDrainDuration": 20s}'

  • Non-TCP based protocols, such as UDP, are not proxied. These protocols will continue to function as normal, without any interception by the Istio proxy but cannot be used in proxy-only components such as ingress or egress gateways.

  • By default, Istio’s sidecar iptables inbound redirection rules shortcircuit if the destination port is 15090, 15021, 15020, or 22. As Envoy does not listen on port 22, this enables the workload container to do so and receive connections to the port.

  • You can also selectively disable ports for proxying Istio sidecar:

    annotations:
      traffic.sidecar.istio.io/excludeInboundPorts: "8090"

  • Need root and have spec in the pod:

    shareProcessNamespace: true
    podname@samplepod:~$ sudo su -
root@samplepod:~$ adduser --uid 1337 envoyuser
root@samplepod:~$ su - envoyuser
envoyuser@samplepod:~$ pkill -f /usr/local/bin/pilot-agent

  • Do this curl requests in the pod for kill sidecar. However, the sidecar will restart after a while.

    curl --request POST localhost:15000/quitquitquit

    curl --request POST localhost:15020/quitquitquit

Countermeasure from attacks

  • Change Envoy admin port: 
    annotations:
      proxy.istio.io/config: |
        proxyAdminPort: 14000
  • Set limited rights for a service account: 
    kind: Role
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
metadata:
  namespace: mynamespace
  name: example-role
rules:
- apiGroups: [""]
  resources: ["pods"]
  verbs: ["get", "watch", "list"]
  • Drop all capabilities and include only the ones you need: 
    securityContext:
    capabilities:
      drop:
        - all
      add: ["MKNOD"]
  • Use distroless images. Non-essential executables and libraries are no longer part of the images when using the distroless variant. The attack surface is reduced. Include the smallest possible set of vulnerabilities.
  • Deploy the Istio CNI plugin in your cluster so it can manage iptables rules in place of the istio-init containers. The Istio CNI plugin performs the Istio mesh pod traffic redirection in the Kubernetes pod lifecycle’s network setup phase, thereby removing the requirement for the NET_ADMIN and NET_RAW capabilities for users deploying pods into the Istio mesh. The Istio CNI plugin replaces the functionality provided by the istio-init container.

In most environments, a basic Istio cluster with CNI enabled can be installed using the following command:

$ cat <<EOF > istio-cni.yaml
apiVersion: install.istio.io/v1alpha1
kind: IstioOperator
spec:
  components:
    cni:
      enabled: true
  values:
    cni:
      excludeNamespaces:
       - istio-system
       - kube-system
      logLevel: info
EOF
$ istioctl install -f istio-cni.yaml
  • Envoy doesn't support UDP, UDP traffic won't be proxied, so use NetworkPolicy to ensure only TCP traffic is allowed to/from the Pod (e.g., to avoid TCP traffic being tunnelled out via a VPN over UDP)
  • Run istioctl proxy-status for the current Istio Pilot sync status of each pod istio-proxy container.
  • Retrieve the current Envoy xDS configuration for a given pod’s proxy sidecar with the istioctl proxy-config cluster|listener|endpoint|route commands.
  • If you have applied an Istio configuration, but it doesn't seem to be taking effect, and istioctl proxy-status shows all proxies as synced, there may be a conflict with the rule. Check the Pilot logs with the command kubectl logs -l app=pilot -n istio-system -c discovery and if you see a non-empty ProxyStatus block, Pilot cannot reconcile or apply configurations for the named Envoy resources.
  • If Pilot doesn’t report any conflicts or other configuration issues, the proxies may be having a connection issue. You can check the log of the istio-proxy container in the source and destination pods for issues. If you don’t see anything helpful, you can increase the logging verbosity of the istio-proxy sidecar, which listens on port 15000 of the pod. (You may have to use kubectl port-forward to be able to connect to the sidecar.) Use a POST request against the proxy port to update the logging level: curl -s -XPOST http://localhost:15000/logging?level=debug
  • Istio telemetry also collects the Envoy access logs, which include the connection response flags. Use the command kubectl logs -l app=telemetry -n istio-system -c mixer to see the log entries if you’re using Mixer telemetry. If your cluster has a Prometheus instance configured to scrape Istio’s metrics, you can query that.

Istio security best practices

https://istio.io/latest/docs/ops/best-practices/security/

References

A Survey of Istio’s Network Security Features

Announcing the results of Istio’s first security assessment

Istio security assessment report