CVE-2026-39961
Aiven Operator has cross-namespace secret exfiltration via ClickhouseUser connInfoSecretSource
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Description
Aiven Operator allows you to provision and manage Aiven Services from your Kubernetes cluster. From 0.31.0 to before 0.37.0, a developer with create permission on ClickhouseUser CRDs in their own namespace can exfiltrate secrets from any other namespace — production database credentials, API keys, service tokens — with a single kubectl apply. The operator reads the victim's secret using its ClusterRole and writes the password into a new secret in the attacker's namespace. The operator acts as a confused deputy: its ServiceAccount has cluster-wide secret read/write (aiven-operator-role ClusterRole), and it trusts user-supplied namespace values in spec.connInfoSecretSource.namespace without validation. No admission webhook enforces this boundary — the ServiceUser webhook returns nil, and no ClickhouseUser webhook exists. This vulnerability is fixed in 0.37.0.
Affected
Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.
Remediation
No guide yetNo remediation guidance has been written for this CVE yet. What the record does show:
References (3)
SSVC — Action Prioritization
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CVSS
- Attack Vector
- NETWORK
- Complexity
- LOW
- Privileges
- HIGH
- User Interaction
- NONE
- Scope
- UNCHANGED
- Confidentiality
- HIGH
- Integrity
- NONE
- Availability
- NONE
Quick Info
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