CVE-2026-16543

Kong Operator cluster-wide ingress configuration DoS via embedded KIC CA-certificate ID collision

Published Jul 29, 2026 CVSS 4.0 · 7.1 High EPSS < 1% KEV · Not listed
Description
Kong Operator's embedded Kong Kubernetes Ingress Controller (KIC) allows a user with namespace-scoped Secret creation privileges to cause a cluster-wide ingress configuration denial of service. The embedded KIC collects CA-certificate Secrets across all watched namespaces using a label selector alone, without ingress-class or namespace restrictions. The CA-certificate primary key is derived from a user-supplied field in the Secret. Duplicate CA-certificate IDs cause Kong Gateway to reject the entire configuration document and halting all ingress changes cluster-wide.

Remediation

Vendor Solution

Upgrade to the patched version of Kong Operator: 2.2.3, 2.1.9 or 2.0.11.


Vendor Workaround

1. Restrict ControlPlane watch scope: Change spec.watchNamespaces.type from All to Own or a narrowly defined List that covers only namespaces whose users are trusted operators. This prevents the embedded KIC from ingesting Secrets from untrusted namespaces.2. Restrict Secret labeling via RBAC: Use Kubernetes RBAC to prevent untrusted users from creating or modifying Secrets with the labels konghq.com/secret=true and konghq.com/ca-cert=true. Consider using an admission webhook or OPA/Kyverno policy to enforce this label restriction. 3. Audit existing CA-cert Secrets: Inspect Secrets labeled konghq.com/ca-cert=true across all watched namespaces for unexpected or duplicate data.id values. Remove any that were not provisioned by a trusted operator.

Tracking

Sign in to view the affected projects.

Advisories

No advisories available
History
Type Values Removed Values Added
First Time appeared Kong
Kong operator
Vendors & Products Kong
Kong operator
Type Values Removed Values Added
Metrics ssvc

{'options': {'Automatable': 'no', 'Exploitation': 'none', 'Technical Impact': 'partial'}, 'version': '2.0.3'}

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description Kong Operator's embedded Kong Kubernetes Ingress Controller (KIC) allows a user with namespace-scoped Secret creation privileges to cause a cluster-wide ingress configuration denial of service. The embedded KIC collects CA-certificate Secrets across all watched namespaces using a label selector alone, without ingress-class or namespace restrictions. The CA-certificate primary key is derived from a user-supplied field in the Secret. Duplicate CA-certificate IDs cause Kong Gateway to reject the entire configuration document and halting all ingress changes cluster-wide.
Title Kong Operator cluster-wide ingress configuration DoS via embedded KIC CA-certificate ID collision
Weaknesses CWE-400
CWE-862
References
Metrics cvssV4_0

{'score': 7.1, 'vector': 'CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N'}

Weaknesses

Sources

Status
PUBLISHED
Assigner
Kong
Published
Updated
Jul 29, 2026, 5:57 PM
Reserved
Jul 22, 2026, 9:53 AM
Status
Awaiting Analysis
Published
Jul 29, 2026, 4:17 PM
Modified
Jul 30, 2026, 2:15 PM