Kong Operator cluster-wide ingress configuration DoS via embedded KIC CA-certificate ID collision

MITRE NVD CVE.ORG JSON API

Summary

CVECVE-2026-16543
StatePUBLISHED
AssignerKong
Source PriorityCVE Program / NVD first with legacy fallback
Published2026-07-29 16:17:50 UTC
Updated2026-07-30 14:15:31 UTC
DescriptionKong Operator's embedded Kong Kubernetes Ingress Controller (KIC) allows a user with namespace-scoped Secret creation privileges to cause a cluster-wide ingress configuration denial of service. The embedded KIC collects CA-certificate Secrets across all watched namespaces using a label selector alone, without ingress-class or namespace restrictions. The CA-certificate primary key is derived from a user-supplied field in the Secret. Duplicate CA-certificate IDs cause Kong Gateway to reject the entire configuration document and halting all ingress changes cluster-wide.

Risk And Classification

Primary CVSS: v4.0 7.1 HIGH from 02762ae7-200e-4b20-9b2b-a77d5b8fc4cb

CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X

EPSS: 0.001400000 probability, percentile 0.038270000 (date 2026-08-02)

Problem Types: CWE-400 | CWE-862 | CWE-862 CWE-862 | CWE-400 CWE-400

VersionSourceTypeScoreSeverityVector
4.002762ae7-200e-4b20-9b2b-a77d5b8fc4cbSecondary7.1HIGHCVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/C...
4.0CNACVSS7.1HIGHCVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

CVSS v4.0 Breakdown

Attack Vector
Network
Attack Complexity
Low
Attack Requirements
None
Privileges Required
Low
User Interaction
None
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High
Sub Conf.
None
Sub Integrity
None
Sub Availability
None

CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X

References

ReferenceSourceLinkTags
github.com/Kong/kong-operator/security/advisories/GHSA-h4fh-j7xg-vwcx 02762ae7-200e-4b20-9b2b-a77d5b8fc4cb github.com
CVE Program record CVE.ORG www.cve.org canonical
NVD vulnerability detail NVD nvd.nist.gov canonical, analysis

Additional Advisory Data

Solutions

CNA: Upgrade to the patched version of Kong Operator: 2.2.3, 2.1.9 or 2.0.11.

Workarounds

CNA: 1. Restrict ControlPlane watch scope: Change spec.watchNamespaces.type from All to Own or a narrowly defined List that covers only namespaces whose users are trusted operators. This prevents the embedded KIC from ingesting Secrets from untrusted namespaces.2. Restrict Secret labeling via RBAC: Use Kubernetes RBAC to prevent untrusted users from creating or modifying Secrets with the labels konghq.com/secret=true and konghq.com/ca-cert=true. Consider using an admission webhook or OPA/Kyverno policy to enforce this label restriction. 3. Audit existing CA-cert Secrets: Inspect Secrets labeled konghq.com/ca-cert=true across all watched namespaces for unexpected or duplicate data.id values. Remove any that were not provisioned by a trusted operator.

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