CKS Supply Chain Security Practice Question
Which of the following is a static analysis tool for Kubernetes manifests?
⚠ Common exam trap
CNCF often tests the distinction between static analysis (Kubesec) and runtime scanning or signing tools (Cosign, Trivy, Syft), leading candidates to confuse Trivy's IaC scanning capability with a dedicated Kubernetes manifest static analyzer.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Kubesec
Kubesec is a static analysis tool specifically designed to evaluate Kubernetes manifests against a set of security best practices. It parses YAML or JSON resource definitions and scores them based on pod security contexts, container privilege escalation, and other runtime hardening rules, without executing the manifests.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Kubesec
Why this is correct
Kubesec is a static analysis tool that directly inspects Kubernetes resource manifests (YAML/JSON) without requiring a live cluster. It applies security best-practice rules—such as disallowing privileged containers, ensuring runAsNonRoot is set, and checking for dangerous capabilities—and produces a weighted risk score from 0 to 10. This validates exactly the kind of declarative security posture that the question asks about.
- ✗
Cosign
Why it's wrong here
Cosign is part of the Sigstore project and focuses on signing and verifying container images, blobs, and other software artifacts to guarantee provenance and integrity. It does not parse or evaluate Kubernetes manifests at all; its job is cryptographically attesting to who published an artifact, not analyzing the security of resource definitions. Therefore, it is unrelated to static manifest analysis.
- ✗
Trivy
Why it's wrong here
Trivy is primarily a vulnerability scanner for container images, filesystem trees, and Git repositories; it also supports scanning IaC templates and SBOMs, but it does not perform security best-practice checks on Kubernetes manifest files the way Kubesec does. Instead of looking for dangerous securityContext settings or missing resource limits, Trivy identifies known CVEs and secrets in dependencies. Its input model centers on artifacts and directories, not declarative Kubernetes YAML.
- ✗
Syft
Why it's wrong here
Syft is a tool for generating Software Bill of Materials (SBOMs) from container images, filesystems, and other input sources, cataloging packages and libraries with their versions. It does not evaluate whether a Kubernetes manifest has insecure settings or violates best practices—it simply enumerates what software components are present. Thus, while both Syft and Kubesec work with artifacts, Syft's purpose is dependency discovery, not static security assessment of k8s resources.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This CKS practice question is part of Courseiva's free CNCF certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the CKS exam.