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PASSEDcloud / k8s_secret_rotation_failure
Kubernetes Secret Rotation Failure — Stale Credentials
An automated Kubernetes secret rotation job fails silently, leaving database credentials expired in 15 Kubernetes Secrets across 3 namespaces. Pods that restart or scale up pick up the expired credentials and cannot connect to databases. Running pods with cached credentials continue working until their connection pools recycle.
Pattern
CONTAINER_EVENT
Severity
CRITICAL
Confidence
92%
Remediation
Auto-Heal
Test Results
| Metric | Expected | Actual | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pattern Recognition | CONTAINER_EVENT | CONTAINER_EVENT | |
| Severity Assessment | CRITICAL | CRITICAL | |
| Incident Correlation | Yes | 40 linked | |
| Cascade Escalation | Yes | Yes | |
| Remediation | — | Auto-Heal — Corax resolves autonomously |
Scenario Conditions
Kubernetes 1.29. External Secrets Operator syncing from HashiCorp Vault. Vault credential lease expired. 15 Kubernetes Secrets affected across namespaces: production, staging, monitoring. Pods with projected secret volumes. Database credential TTL: 24 hours (expired 2 hours ago).
Injected Error Messages (3)
External Secrets Operator sync failure — SecretStore 'vault-backend' status: NotReady, Vault lease renewal failed: 'permission denied', 15 ExternalSecret resources showing SyncError condition, last successful sync: 26 hours ago, Vault token expired, kubelet unable to refresh projected secret volumes, container runtime not receiving updated credentials
Payment service pods failing after restart — new pod 'payment-api-8f7d6c5-q9w2' unable to connect to database: 'FATAL: password authentication failed for user payment_svc', Kubernetes secret 'payment-db-credentials' contains expired credentials, rolling deployment stuck at 1/3 ready replicas, container restart count: 12, older pods still connected with cached credentials
Inventory service degraded — scaled replica 'inventory-api-4b3a2c1-j8k5' launched with stale database credentials from expired Kubernetes secret, pod in CrashLoopBackOff: 'database connection refused: authentication failed', HPA triggered scale-up but new pods cannot authenticate, container logs showing repeated auth failures every 10 seconds, existing pods connection pool recycling in 45 minutes
Neural Engine Root Cause Analysis
The External Secrets Operator is failing due to an expired Vault authentication token, resulting in 'permission denied' errors when attempting to renew the lease. This has caused the SecretStore 'vault-backend' to enter a NotReady state, preventing the operator from syncing 15 ExternalSecret resources for the past 26 hours. The cascade effect is impacting kubelet's ability to refresh projected secret volumes and preventing containers from receiving updated credentials, likely causing the 13 correlated incidents.
Remediation Plan
1. Restart the External Secrets Operator deployment to force token refresh and re-authentication with Vault. 2. Verify the operator's ServiceAccount has valid Vault authentication configured (Kubernetes auth method or token injection). 3. Monitor the SecretStore status transition from NotReady to Ready. 4. Confirm ExternalSecret resources resume successful synchronization. 5. Validate that dependent applications receive refreshed credentials and recover from authentication failures.
Tested: 2026-03-30Monitors: 3 | Incidents: 3Test ID: cmncjvx3s0561obqe9ll57o7z