kube-bench

kube-bench is the industry-standard open-source tool designed to verify whether a Kubernetes deployment meets the security best practices defined by the Center for Internet Security (CIS) Kubernetes Benchmarks. Developed by Aqua Security and written in Go, it executes a series of tests against the master, control plane, and node components of a cluster. In the 2026 landscape, kube-bench remains a foundational element of the DevSecOps toolchain, having evolved to support highly specialized benchmarks for managed services including Amazon EKS, Azure AKS, and Google GKE. The tool operates by parsing YAML-defined test files, making it extensible for custom organizational policies. It is typically deployed as a containerized job or a DaemonSet, ensuring that infrastructure-as-code (IaC) templates and live environments remain drift-free and compliant. Its technical architecture allows for seamless integration with Prometheus for monitoring and various SIEMs via structured JSON output, positioning it as a critical first line of defense in automated cloud-native security posture management (CSPM).