Kyverno: >> Kyverno >> 1.12.1 Security Vulnerabilities
Kyverno from 1.17.0 before 1.19.2 contains a privilege escalation vulnerability that allows namespace-scoped tenants to modify resources in other namespaces through NamespacedMutatingPolicy targetMatchConstraints.expression CEL output lacking namespace checks. Attackers can emit a literal target such as another tenant's RoleBinding, which the cluster-wide background controller then mutates to add attacker subjects or alter Roles, NetworkPolicies, and ConfigMaps.
CVSS Score
9.4
EPSS Score
0.003
Published
2026-11-05
Kyverno before 1.19.2 contains a privilege escalation vulnerability that allows namespace admins to create resources beyond their RBAC because generate-rule admission checks verify the controller's permissions, not the author's. Attackers can create a namespaced Policy with generate rules targeting other namespaces or cluster-scoped kinds, making the background controller create or clone resources cluster-wide.
CVSS Score
9.3
EPSS Score
0.003
Published
2026-11-05
Kyverno before 1.19.2 contains a denial of service vulnerability that allows namespaced policy authors to exhaust admission controller CPU by submitting pathological wildcard patterns. Attackers can create a Policy with crafted match and exclude names evaluated by ValidateMatchExcludeConflict, pinning cores and causing cluster-wide webhook timeouts that block resource operations.
CVSS Score
8.3
EPSS Score
0.003
Published
2026-11-05
Kyverno before 1.19.2 contains a policy bypass vulnerability in the admissionpolicygenerator controller, which folds PolicyExceptions into generated ValidatingAdmissionPolicies while ignoring the --enablePolicyException, --exceptionNamespace, and policy kind gates. Users with namespaced create rights on PolicyExceptions can inject negated matchConditions into the generated policies to admit violating resources, bypassing cluster-wide enforcement.
CVSS Score
8.3
EPSS Score
0.002
Published
2026-11-05
Kyverno is a policy engine designed for cloud native platform engineering teams. Prior to versions 1.18.0-rc1, 1.17.2-rc1, and 1.16.4, Kyverno's apiCall feature in ClusterPolicy automatically attaches the admission controller's ServiceAccount token to outgoing HTTP requests. The service URL has no validation — it can point anywhere, including attacker-controlled servers. Since the admission controller SA has permissions to patch webhook configurations, a stolen token leads to full cluster compromise. Versions 1.18.0-rc1, 1.17.2-rc1, and 1.16.4 patch the issue.
CVSS Score
8.1
EPSS Score
0.006
Published
2026-04-24
Kyverno is a policy engine designed for cloud native platform engineering teams. The patch for CVE-2026-22039 fixed cross-namespace privilege escalation in Kyverno's `apiCall` context by validating the `URLPath` field. However, the ConfigMap context loader has the identical vulnerability — the `configMap.namespace` field accepts any namespace with zero validation, allowing a namespace admin to read ConfigMaps from any namespace using Kyverno's privileged service account. This is a complete RBAC bypass in multi-tenant Kubernetes clusters. An updated fix is available in version 1.17.2.
CVSS Score
7.7
EPSS Score
0.003
Published
2026-04-24
Kyverno is a policy engine designed for cloud native platform engineering teams. Prior to 1.16.4, kyverno’s apiCall servicecall helper implicitly injects Authorization: Bearer ... using the kyverno controller serviceaccount token when a policy does not explicitly set an Authorization header. Because context.apiCall.service.url is policy-controlled, this can send the kyverno serviceaccount token to an attacker-controlled endpoint (confused deputy). Namespaced policies are blocked from servicecall usage by the namespaced urlPath gate in pkg/engine/apicall/apiCall.go, so this report is scoped to ClusterPolicy and global context usage. This vulnerability is fixed in 1.16.4.
CVSS Score
8.1
EPSS Score
0.003
Published
2026-04-21
Kyverno is a policy engine designed for cloud native platform engineering teams. Versions prior to 1.16.3 and 1.15.3 have a critical authorization boundary bypass in namespaced Kyverno Policy apiCall. The resolved `urlPath` is executed using the Kyverno admission controller ServiceAccount, with no enforcement that the request is limited to the policy’s namespace. As a result, any authenticated user with permission to create a namespaced Policy can cause Kyverno to perform Kubernetes API requests using Kyverno’s admission controller identity, targeting any API path allowed by that ServiceAccount’s RBAC. This breaks namespace isolation by enabling cross-namespace reads (for example, ConfigMaps and, where permitted, Secrets) and allows cluster-scoped or cross-namespace writes (for example, creating ClusterPolicies) by controlling the urlPath through context variable substitution. Versions 1.16.3 and 1.15.3 contain a patch for the vulnerability.
CVSS Score
9.9
EPSS Score
0.006
Published
2026-01-27
Kyverno is a policy engine designed for cloud native platform engineering teams. Versions prior to 1.16.3 and 1.15.3 have unbounded memory consumption in Kyverno's policy engine that allows users with policy creation privileges to cause denial of service by crafting policies that exponentially amplify string data through context variables. Versions 1.16.3 and 1.15.3 contain a patch for the vulnerability.
CVSS Score
7.7
EPSS Score
0.006
Published
2026-01-27
Kyverno is a policy engine designed for cloud native platform engineering teams. In versions 1.14.1 and below, a Denial of Service (DoS) vulnerability exists due to improper handling of JMESPath variable substitutions. Attackers with permissions to create or update Kyverno policies can craft expressions using the {{@}} variable combined with a pipe and an invalid JMESPath function (e.g., {{@ | non_existent_function }}). This leads to a nil value being substituted into the policy structure. Subsequent processing by internal functions, specifically getValueAsStringMap, which expect string values, results in a panic due to a type assertion failure (interface {} is nil, not string). This crashes Kyverno worker threads in the admission controller and causes continuous crashes of the reports controller pod. This is fixed in version 1.14.2.
CVSS Score
7.7
EPSS Score
0.006
Published
2025-07-23