ECS Container Running In Privileged Mode

What this rule checks

Detects ECS task definitions with a container running in privileged mode, which can access the host and escalate a container compromise into host compromise.

How to fix it

1. 1Remove Privileged: true from the container definition unless strictly required
2. 2Grant only the specific Linux capabilities the workload needs via LinuxParameters

import * as ecs from 'aws-cdk-lib/aws-ecs';

new ecs.CfnTaskDefinition(this, 'Task', {
  containerDefinitions: [
    {
      name: 'app',
      image: 'public.ecr.aws/nginx/nginx:latest',
      privileged: true,
    },
  ],
});

import * as ecs from 'aws-cdk-lib/aws-ecs';

new ecs.CfnTaskDefinition(this, 'Task', {
  containerDefinitions: [
    {
      name: 'app',
      image: 'public.ecr.aws/nginx/nginx:latest',
      privileged: false,
    },
  ],
});

CDK Insights pinpoints the exact file and line in your CDK source for every finding, so you can jump straight to the fix.

Affected resource types

Intentional? Suppress this finding

Sometimes a flag is deliberate — a genuinely public endpoint, say. You can dismiss ecs-container-privileged and the reason is kept in the report, not silently hidden.

In .cdk-insights.json:

{
  "ignoreRules": [
    { "id": "ecs-container-privileged", "reason": "Why this is intentional" }
  ]
}

Or inline in your CDK code:

Validations.of(scope).acknowledge({
  id: 'cdk-insights::ecs-container-privileged',
  reason: 'Why this is intentional',
});

Use the rule ID ecs-container-privileged shown above — not the CDK-* ID from SARIF / GitHub code scanning. To dismiss every finding on one construct instead, use ignorePaths. Suppression docs →

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