Kubewarden: RBAC Reconnaissance via unchecked can_i host capability call

Summary

CVECVE-2026-42541
StatePUBLISHED
AssignerGitHub_M
Source PriorityCVE Program / NVD first with legacy fallback
Published2026-05-12 18:17:24 UTC
Updated2026-05-12 18:17:24 UTC
DescriptionKubewarden is a policy engine for Kubernetes. Prior to , An attacker with privileged AdmissionPolicy or AdmissionPolicyGroup create permissions (which isn't the default) can craft a policy that makes use of the can_i host callback. The callback issues a SubjectAccessReview (SAR) requests to enumerate RBAC permissions of any user or service account across the cluster. can_i does not perform that check to enforce the context-aware allow-list and forwards the request directly to the callback handler, which executes a real SubjectAccessReview using policy-server privileges. This creates a policy-level authorization gap: can_i is effectively usable even when the policy has no context-aware resource grant. This is an information disclosure / reconnaissance issue, and not direct workload data exfiltration. The attacker learns permission information, such as whether specific service accounts can "get secrets", "create pods", or "bind clusterroles" in chosen namespaces. This vulnerability is fixed in .

Risk And Classification

Primary CVSS: v3.1 4.3 MEDIUM from [email protected]

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N

Problem Types: CWE-862 | CWE-862 CWE-862: Missing Authorization


VersionSourceTypeScoreSeverityVector
3.1[email protected]Secondary4.3MEDIUMCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N
3.1CNADECLARED4.3MEDIUMCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N

CVSS v3.1 Breakdown

Attack Vector
Network
Attack Complexity
Low
Privileges Required
Low
User Interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
Low
Integrity
None
Availability
None

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N

Vendor Declared Affected Products

SourceVendorProductVersionPlatforms
CNA Kubewarden Kubewarden-controller affected < 1.35.0 Not specified

References

ReferenceSourceLinkTags
github.com/kubewarden/adm-controller/security/advisories/GHSA-wqcw-g35j-... [email protected] github.com
CVE Program record CVE.ORG www.cve.org canonical
NVD vulnerability detail NVD nvd.nist.gov canonical, analysis
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