Why is leaving the API server's --authorization-mode=AlwaysAllow dangerous?

Question

Accepted Answer

It approves every authorization request, effectively disabling authorization and least privilege — AlwaysAllow is the opposite of RBAC — any authenticated caller can do anything, making least privilege impossible. It does not force anonymous authentication, does not disable TLS, and does not delete RBAC objects.

Answer

It forces every incoming request to fall back to anonymous authentication on the secure port

Answer

It disables TLS on the API server, so all authorization traffic is sent unencrypted over 6443

Answer

It deletes all existing RBAC Roles and RoleBindings the next time the API server is restarted

Why is leaving the API server's --authorization-mode=AlwaysAllow dangerous?

Why this is the answer

More Kubernetes Security & Cluster Hardening flashcards