CVE-2026-39961

Aiven Operator has cross-namespace secret exfiltration via ClickhouseUser connInfoSecretSource

Published Apr 9, 2026 CVSS 3.1 · 6.8 Medium EPSS < 1% KEV · Not listed
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.

Remediation

No solution or workaround provided in the CVE record

Tracking

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Advisories

Source ID Title
Github GHSA Github GHSA GHSA-99j8-wv67-4c72 Aiven Operator has cross-namespace secret exfiltration via ClickhouseUser connInfoSecretSource
History
Type Values Removed Values Added
First Time appeared Aiven aiven Operator
CPEs cpe:2.3:a:aiven:aiven_operator:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Vendors & Products Aiven aiven 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
First Time appeared Aiven
Aiven aiven-operator
Vendors & Products Aiven
Aiven aiven-operator
Type Values Removed Values Added
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.
Title Aiven Operator has cross-namespace secret exfiltration via ClickhouseUser connInfoSecretSource
Weaknesses CWE-269
CWE-441
References
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 6.8, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N'}

Weaknesses

Sources

Status
PUBLISHED
Assigner
GitHub_M
Published
Updated
Apr 10, 2026, 2:08 PM
Reserved
Apr 7, 2026, 10:40 PM
Status
Analyzed
Published
Apr 9, 2026, 6:17 PM
Modified
Oct 26, 2026, 9:10 PM