KEDA: Privilege escalation from namespace admin to cluster admin via KEDA TriggerAuthentication
Summary
| CVE | CVE-2026-77524 |
|---|---|
| State | PUBLISHED |
| Assigner | GitHub_M |
| Source Priority | CVE Program / NVD first with legacy fallback |
| Published | 2026-10-14 17:19:11 UTC |
| Updated | 2026-10-16 16:00:33 UTC |
| Description | KEDA is a Kubernetes-based Event Driven Autoscaling component. In version 2.20.2 and earlier, a namespace administrator who can create TriggerAuthentication and ScaledObject resources can set hashiCorpVault.address to a tenant-controlled endpoint and select Kubernetes authentication without an explicit credential. KEDA then uses the operator pod's projected ServiceAccount token and sends it to that endpoint as a Vault login credential. The JWT-shape filter from the prior CVE-2025-68476 remediation accepts the operator token because its subject is a Kubernetes ServiceAccount, so the attacker can obtain the operator's cluster-wide permissions, including broad Secret reads and workload or admission-related operations. This vulnerability is fixed in 2.21.0. |
Risk And Classification
Primary CVSS: v3.1 9.9 CRITICAL from [email protected]
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Problem Types: CWE-269 | CWE-918 | CWE-269 CWE-269: Improper Privilege Management | CWE-918 CWE-918: Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF)
| Version | Source | Type | Score | Severity | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3.1 | [email protected] | Secondary | 9.9 | CRITICAL | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H |
| 3.1 | CNA | DECLARED | 9.9 | CRITICAL | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H |
CVSS v3.1 Breakdown
Attack Vector
NetworkAttack Complexity
LowPrivileges Required
LowUser Interaction
NoneScope
ChangedConfidentiality
HighIntegrity
HighAvailability
HighCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Vendor Declared Affected Products
References
| Reference | Source | Link | Tags |
|---|---|---|---|
| github.com/kedacore/keda/releases/tag/v2.21.0 | [email protected] | github.com | |
| github.com/kedacore/keda/security/advisories/GHSA-637c-6jxx-4rwm | [email protected] | github.com | |
| github.com/kedacore/keda/commit/1e21cc798dedd079e696cdb45388eddc5e18365d | [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.