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    CVE-2026-42876

    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.

    Published:May 11, 2026
    Last Modified:May 12, 2026
    EPS:May 11, 2026
    EPSS Score:0.0002
    CVSS Score:4.9

    Affected Products

    Vendor
    External-secrets
    Product
    External-secrets

    Exploits

    No exploit reference

    Common Weakness Enumeration

    CWE-285 Improper Authorization

    Related CVEs

    CVE-2026-42875 (CVSS 5.3) — External Secrets Operator reads information from a third-party service and automatically injects the values as…
    CVE-2026-34984 (CVSS 7.1) — External Secrets Operator reads information from a third-party service and automatically injects the values as…
    CVE-2026-22822 (CVSS 9.3) — External Secrets Operator reads information from a third-party service and automatically injects the values as…
    CVE-2025-62159 (CVSS 8.7) — External Secrets Operator reads information from a third-party service and automatically injects the values as…
    CVE-2025-55196 (CVSS 7.1) — External Secrets Operator is a Kubernetes operator that integrates external secret management systems. From ve…
    CVE-2024-45041 (CVSS 8.3) — External Secrets Operator is a Kubernetes operator that integrates external secret management systems. The ext…
    CVE-2024-36540 (CVSS 9.8) — Insecure permissions in external-secrets v0.9.16 allows attackers to access sensitive data and escalate privil…

    Common Vulnerability Scoring System

    Attack Vector
    Network
    Adjacent
    Local
    Physical
    Privileges Required
    None
    Low
    High
    User Interaction
    None
    Required
    Scope
    Unchanged
    Changed
    Confidentiality
    None
    Low
    High
    Integrity
    None
    Low
    High
    Availability
    None
    Low
    High