Portainer: Kubernetes middleware continues after token validation failure, bypassing endpoint authorization

Summary

CVECVE-2026-44882
StatePUBLISHED
AssignerGitHub_M
Source PriorityCVE Program / NVD first with legacy fallback
Published2026-05-28 22:16:59 UTC
Updated2026-05-29 15:06:44 UTC
DescriptionPortainer 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


VersionSourceTypeScoreSeverityVector
3.1[email protected]Secondary8.1HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
3.1CNADECLARED8.1HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N

CVSS v3.1 Breakdown

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

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

Vendor Declared Affected Products

SourceVendorProductVersionPlatforms
CNA Portainer Portainer affected >= 2.33.0, < 2.33.8 Not specified

References

ReferenceSourceLinkTags
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
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