Microsoft warns standard helmet diagram. Possible

Microsoft Security researcher has published an urgent warning that standard helmet diagram configurations, which are often used to provide Kubernetes applications, could expose sensitive data to attackers.

According to a report by Microsoft Defender for cloud research team published on May 5, 2025, these pre-packaged deployment templates often prioritize the convenience of security and create significant weaknesses.

By default, many popular helmet diagrams expose critical services for the Internet without implementing the right authentication mechanisms.

“Without checking the Yaml manif and helmet diagrams carefully, organizations that are not lacking protection performance can unknowingly use what is fully exposed to attackers,” explained the researchers.

Security risks in standard -kubernetes -Helm -diagram -reports

The examination showed two primary security concerns: services externally without proper network restrictions and inadequate integrated authentication or authorization.

This dangerous combination creates an environment in which attackers can easily access sensitive data or even gain administrative control over cloud resources.

Apache Pinot, an OLAP data store in real time, was highlighted as a particularly worrying example. The standard helmet diagram shows core components about Kubernetes Loadbalancer services without an authentication requirement.

Microsoft researchers discovered actual incidents in which attackers use incorrectly configured Apache Pinot workloads to access user data.

The configuration in need of protection in many diagrams is similar to this pattern:

Meshery, a platform for the cloud native infrastructure management, was also classified as problematic. If you are provided with the help of official helmet instructions, everyone can access the external IP address, create an account and possibly provide new pods in the cluster.

The problem goes beyond these examples. Microsoft researchers found several popular applications with similar weaknesses after looking for Github repositories for Yaml files, which contained indicators for incorrectly configured workloads such as “Type: Loadbalancer”.

Recommendations of Microsoft

Microsoft recommends to alleviate these risks:

• Check the configurations before the provision instead of relying on standard settings.
• Implementation of strong authentication mechanisms and network insulation.
• Scan regularly exposed services.
• Monitor container applications for suspicious activities.

“The majority of the applications we rated had at least one form of basic cereal protection, although the strength and reliability of these measures was significantly different,” said the researchers.

“A small but critical group of applications either did not provide any authentication or used a predefined user and a password for registration, which means that they are available for attackers.”

Microsoft Defender for Cloud can help companies to identify these security dates through warnings of exposed Kubernetes services and the visualization of workloads on the Internet via the Cloud Security Explorer.

While the Kubernetes adoption continues to grow, security professionals emphasize that organizations have to thoroughly check the standard configurations before providing, especially if sensitive data are involved.

Authentication functions, as available in Apache Pinot 0.8.0+, should be activated instead of using standard configurations that leave the services released.

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