CVE-2026-42541
MediumWhat is CVE-2026-42541?
Kubewarden 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 .
CVSS Vector Breakdown
CVSS 3.1Exploitable remotely over the network without requiring access to the local system.
No special conditions required. Exploit can be performed reliably and repeatedly.
Basic user account required (e.g. standard login without admin rights).
No user interaction required. Exploit runs without any victim action.
Exploiting the vulnerability only affects the vulnerable component itself.
Some sensitive information is disclosed, but attacker has limited access.
No integrity impact. Data cannot be modified.
No availability impact. Service remains fully operational.
FAQ
CVE-2026-42541 has a CVSS score of 4.3/10, rated as Medium. Review the affected products list and apply vendor patches.
CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) rates vulnerability severity from 0.0 to 10.0. CVE-2026-42541 scores 4.3/10 (Medium). Scores 9.0–10.0 are Critical, 7.0–8.9 are High, 4.0–6.9 are Medium, and below 4.0 are Low.
The list of devices confirmed to be affected by CVE-2026-42541 is shown in the "Affected Devices" section above. Check your firmware version against the vendor security advisory and apply the latest patch.
Apply the latest firmware or software update from the vendor. Check the References section above for official advisories and patch notes. If no patch is available, consider disabling the affected feature or isolating the device from untrusted networks.