Improper Authorization Affecting external-secrets-operator package, versions <2.0.0-r0
Threat Intelligence
The probability is the direct output of the EPSS model, and conveys an overall sense of the threat of exploitation in the wild. The percentile measures the EPSS probability relative to all known EPSS scores. Note: This data is updated daily, relying on the latest available EPSS model version. Check out the EPSS documentation for more details.
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Test your applications- Snyk IDSNYK-MINIMOSLATEST-EXTERNALSECRETSOPERATOR-17769372
- published2 Jul 2026
- disclosed11 May 2026
Introduced: 11 May 2026
CVE-2026-42876 (opens in a new tab)How to fix?
Upgrade Minimos:latest external-secrets-operator to version 2.0.0-r0 or higher.
NVD Description
Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream external-secrets-operator package and not the external-secrets-operator package as distributed by Minimos.
See How to fix? for Minimos:latest relevant fixed versions and status.
External Secrets Operator reads information from a third-party service and automatically injects the values as Kubernetes Secrets. Prior to 2.4.1, a user who only has permission to create ExternalSecret resources can cause the operator to create a Secret that Kubernetes will automatically populate with a long-lived token for the specified service account. This effectively allows the user to impersonate any service account in the namespace without needing direct create permissions on TokenRequest or Secrets of that type. This vulnerability is fixed in 2.4.1.
References
- https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-42876
- https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-fq7h-9x26-6j22
- https://osv.dev/vulnerability/MINI-gcw7-q39r-j8x4
- https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-42876
- https://github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets/commit/4ddd240af7fe88725d9857b9a0c198073502e288
- https://github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets/releases/tag/v2.4.1
- https://github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets/security/advisories/GHSA-fq7h-9x26-6j22