Portainer: Kubernetes middleware continues after token validation failure, bypassing endpoint authorization
Summary
| CVE | CVE-2026-44882 |
|---|---|
| State | PUBLISHED |
| Assigner | GitHub_M |
| Source Priority | CVE Program / NVD first with legacy fallback |
| Published | 2026-05-28 22:16:59 UTC |
| Updated | 2026-05-29 15:06:44 UTC |
| Description | Portainer Community Edition is a lightweight service delivery platform for containerized applications that can be used to manage Docker, Swarm, Kubernetes and ACI environments. From 2.33.0 to before 2.33., Portainer proxies requests to Kubernetes clusters through a middleware layer (kubeClientMiddleware) that validates the requesting user's token before forwarding traffic to the cluster. When security.RetrieveTokenData returned an error, the middleware wrote an HTTP 403 response but was missing a return statement — execution continued into the handler with a nil tokenData value. The Kubernetes endpoints sit behind Portainer's outer AuthenticatedAccess bouncer, so an attacker requires a valid Portainer session. However, a user whose secondary token validation fails in kubeClientMiddleware — for example a user without permission to access a given Kubernetes endpoint — would have their request forwarded to the cluster anyway, bypassing the authorization check. The same defect was present in both the CE and EE codebases. This vulnerability is fixed in 2.33.8. |
Risk And Classification
Primary CVSS: v3.1 8.1 HIGH from [email protected]
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
EPSS: 0.000420000 probability, percentile 0.133340000 (date 2026-05-29)
Problem Types: CWE-863 | CWE-863 CWE-863: Incorrect Authorization
| Version | Source | Type | Score | Severity | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3.1 | [email protected] | Secondary | 8.1 | HIGH | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N |
| 3.1 | CNA | DECLARED | 8.1 | HIGH | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N |
CVSS v3.1 Breakdown
Attack Vector
NetworkAttack Complexity
LowPrivileges Required
LowUser Interaction
NoneScope
UnchangedConfidentiality
HighIntegrity
HighAvailability
NoneCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
Vendor Declared Affected Products
References
| Reference | Source | Link | Tags |
|---|---|---|---|
| github.com/portainer/portainer/security/advisories/GHSA-mgq6-4x29-88r3 | [email protected] | github.com | |
| CVE Program record | CVE.ORG | www.cve.org | canonical |
| NVD vulnerability detail | NVD | nvd.nist.gov | canonical, analysis |
No vendor comments have been submitted for this CVE.
There are currently no legacy QID mappings associated with this CVE.