CVE-2026-42876

External Secrets Operator: Privilege escalation with secret overwriting

Published May 11, 2026 CVSS 3.1 · 4.9 Medium EPSS < 1% KEV · Not listed
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.

Remediation

No solution or workaround provided in the CVE record

Tracking

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Advisories

Source ID Title
Github GHSA Github GHSA GHSA-fq7h-9x26-6j22 ExternalSecrets vulnerable to privilege escalation with secret overwriting
History
Type Values Removed Values Added
Title External Secrets Operator: Priviledge escalation with secret overwriting External Secrets Operator: Privilege escalation with secret overwriting
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 External-secrets
External-secrets external-secrets
Vendors & Products External-secrets
External-secrets external-secrets
Type Values Removed Values Added
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.
Title External Secrets Operator: Priviledge escalation with secret overwriting
Weaknesses CWE-285
References
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 4.9, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N'}

Weaknesses

Sources

Status
PUBLISHED
Assigner
GitHub_M
Published
Updated
Oct 6, 2026, 3:30 PM
Reserved
Apr 30, 2026, 6:49 PM
Status
Deferred
Published
May 11, 2026, 8:25 PM
Modified
Jun 17, 2026, 10:48 AM