CVE-2026-42876External Secrets Operator: Privilege escalation with secret overwriting
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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.
- CVSS
- 4.9 MEDIUM (v3.1, CNA)CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N
- Weakness (CWE)
- CWE-285
- Known exploited
- Not in CISA's KEV catalog
- EPSS (exploitation in the next 30 days)
- Not loaded for this CVE
- Assigned by
- GitHub_M
- NVD analysis
- Deferred
- Record last updated
- Oct 6, 2026
- First seen by InfoSec Signals
- Oct 9, 2026
Affected products
external-secrets external-secrets external_secrets:external_secrets (from the name) | before 2.4.1 | CNA record |
References
- https://github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets/security/advisories/GHSA-fq7h-9x26-6j22x-refsource-confirm
- https://github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets/commit/4ddd240af7fe88725d9857b9a0c198073502e288x-refsource-misc
- https://github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets/releases/tag/v2.4.1x-refsource-misc
The CVE record on cve.org NVD's entry
The CVE record is authoritative. Products marked “from the name” were identified from the CNA's free-text names, not a CPE, and are matched less certainly. This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.