Quantum Secular Labs / Blog / Advisories
CVE-2026-122313: Kyverno: Privilege escalation
CVE-2026-122313 is rated critical with a CVSS v3.1 base score of 9.9. Per its scoring, it can be exploited over the network, without any user interaction. The scored impact on confidentiality, integrity and availability is the highest available.
Vulnerability description
Kyverno from 1.17.0 before 1.19.2 contains a privilege escalation vulnerability that allows namespace-scoped tenants to modify resources in other namespaces through NamespacedMutatingPolicy targetMatchConstraints.expression CEL output lacking namespace checks. Attackers can emit a literal target such as another tenant's RoleBinding, which the cluster-wide background controller then mutates to add attacker subjects or alter Roles, NetworkPolicies, and ConfigMaps.
Severity breakdown
CVSS v3.1 9.9: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
- Attack vector: Network. Exploitable remotely over the network, with no need for local or physical access.
- Attack complexity: Low. No special conditions; the attack can be repeated reliably.
- Privileges required: Low. A basic user account is enough.
- User interaction: None. No action from any user is needed.
- Scope: Changed. Impact reaches beyond the vulnerable component to other resources.
- Confidentiality impact: High. Total loss of confidentiality; sensitive data can be fully disclosed.
- Integrity impact: High. Total loss of integrity; data or system state can be fully modified.
- Availability impact: High. Total loss of availability; the component can be shut down.
Underlying weakness
CWE-269: Improper Privilege Management
The product does not properly assign, modify, track, or check privileges for an actor, creating an unintended sphere of control for that actor.