CVE-2026-42876
External Secrets Operator: Privilege escalation with secret overwriting
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Description
External Secrets Operator reads information from a third-party service and automatically injects the values as Kubernetes Secrets. Prior to 2.4.1, a user who only has permission to create ExternalSecret resources can cause the operator to create a Secret that Kubernetes will automatically populate with a long-lived token for the specified service account. This effectively allows the user to impersonate any service account in the namespace without needing direct create permissions on TokenRequest or Secrets of that type. This vulnerability is fixed in 2.4.1.
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, and no fixed version or vendor advisory is recorded against it.
References (3)
SSVC — Action Prioritization
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CVSS
- Attack Vector
- NETWORK
- Complexity
- HIGH
- Privileges
- LOW
- User Interaction
- NONE
- Scope
- CHANGED
- Confidentiality
- LOW
- Integrity
- LOW
- Availability
- NONE
Quick Info
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