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CKS · Minimize Microservice Vulnerabilities

Disable API Credential Auto-Mounting

A ServiceAccount is automatically mounting API credentials into Pods.

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The task

Task

A ServiceAccount is automatically mounting API credentials into Pods.

Requirements

  1. Disable automatic token mounting on ServiceAccount app-sa in namespace default
  2. Update Deployment token-app to manually mount the ServiceAccount token using a projected volume
  3. The token must be mounted as read-only at /var/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount

Verify that the Pod starts successfully and the token is mounted only through the projected volume.

Exam
CKS
Domain
Minimize Microservice Vulnerabilities
Grading
Programmatic · partial credit

What this tests

Apply Pod Security Standards, securityContext, and mTLS, and protect secrets at rest. On the CKS exam, Minimize Microservice Vulnerabilities tasks are graded purely on what you build in the cluster — not multiple choice — so the only way to get faster is to do them on a real cluster against a clock.

Practice it for real

prepium.sh drops you into your own isolated Kubernetes cluster in the browser — no install, no credit card. You solve the task in a real terminal, hit validate, and a programmatic checker scores exactly what you got right and wrong (with partial credit). The canonical solution unlocks after you attempt it, so you learn the fast, exam-ready way to do it.

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