More Info:
The kubelet kubeconfig file should have permissions of 644 or more restrictive to prevent unauthorized users from reading or modifying kubelet credentials and cluster connection settings.Risk Level
MediumAddress
SecurityCompliance Standards
- CIS EKS
Triage and Remediation
- Remediation
Remediation
Manual Steps
Manual Steps
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On every worker node, check the current permissions and ownership of the kubelet kubeconfig file:
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On every worker node, set the permissions to 644 (owner read/write, group and others read-only):
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(Optional but recommended) On every worker node, ensure the file is owned by root and in the root group:
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On every worker node, re-check the permissions to verify the fix:
Using kubectl
Using kubectl
kubectl cannot change file permissions on node-local paths such as
/etc/kubernetes/kubelet.conf; this must be fixed directly on every worker node’s host OS. Use the steps in the Manual Steps section to adjust the permissions and verify the remediation.Automation
Automation
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On each worker node (as root or with sudo):
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From an admin machine with SSH access to all worker nodes (example with a simple host list):

