AI Cyber Defense / Cloud, Kubernetes and software supply chain
AI Cyber Defense: Reconcile running workloads with approved deployment inventory
Alert on unmanaged workloads and require ownership resolution before adoption or retirement. Apply organization-level identity and network controls regardless of deployment path.
Environment and inputs: Cloud control planes, workload identity, Kubernetes clusters, CI/CD pipelines and immutable deployment artifacts; provider support varies.
Scenario and goal
An attacker can create resources outside the main pipeline and evade controls attached only to release tooling.
Why it matters
For this scenario, an attacker can automate permitted API operations after gaining a workload or pipeline identity. Review who can change trust, who can assume the resulting identity and what resources it can reach. Keep source review, build provenance, deployment authorization and runtime permissions as distinct checks. A configuration object or successful deployment does not prove the intended runtime boundary is enforced.
Evidence to collect
Compare runtime assets, creation audit events, source revisions, owner tags and the deployment identities approved for each environment.
Validate with an authorized exercise
Introduce a harmless inventory-only orphan resource fixture; verify triage identifies its creator and effective permissions rather than automatically trusting a familiar-looking name.
Rollout and checks
Evaluate effective permissions and runtime behavior in a disposable account or namespace before production rollout. Retain the approved source revision, resulting artifact and independent audit trail. Plan recovery if identity, policy or admission dependencies fail. Reconcile running assets after the change because resources created outside the normal pipeline can otherwise remain outside its checks.
Scope and limits
This guide proposes a defensive test; it is not a tested production design. Check platform support and local requirements. References explain the mechanisms but do not certify the design. Behavior alone does not prove AI involvement.