Which versions of Kong Operator are affected by CVE-2026-16543?

Kong Operator's embedded Kubernetes Ingress Controller contains a missing-authorization flaw that allows any user with basic namespace-level Secret creation permissions to disable all ingress routing…

How to fix or mitigate CVE-2026-16543?

Within 24 hours: immediately restrict Secret creation RBAC permissions within Kong-monitored namespaces to trusted administrators only, and audit current namespace-scoped Secret creation access patterns. Within 7 days: evaluate alternative ingress controllers (NGINX, Traefik, Istio) to reduce Kong Operator dependency and conduct a comprehensive review of all users with Secret creation rights. Within 30 days: implement additional monitoring and alerting on Secret creation events to detect anomalous certificate definitions; verify whether your Kong Operator version supports ingress-class scoping to limit CA certificate gathering; plan migration to an alternative ingress solution or Kong Operator version pending vendor patch release.

Kong Operator CVE-2026-16543

Q: What is the CVSS score of CVE-2026-16543?

CVE-2026-16543 has a CVSS 4.0 base score of 7.1 (High). CVSS vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X. EPSS exploitation probability: 0.1%.

EUVD-2026-50394 HIGH

Missing Authorization (CWE-862)

2026-07-29 Kong

Authentication Bypass Denial Of Service Kubernetes

7.1

CVSS 4.0 · Vendor: Kong

Severity by source

Vendor (Kong) PRIMARY

7.1 HIGH

CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X

vuln.today AI

7.7 HIGH

Namespace tenant privilege (PR:L) via the Kubernetes API (AV:N/AC:L); a scoped Secret impacts the whole gateway config, so S:C; availability-only impact makes C:N/I:N/A:H.

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

4.0 AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:H

Primary rating from Vendor (Kong).

CVSS VectorVendor: Kong

Attack Vector

Network

Attack Complexity

Low

Privileges Required

Low

User Interaction

None

Scope

Lifecycle Timeline

Analysis Generated

Jul 29, 2026 - 16:26 vuln.today

CVE Published

Jul 29, 2026 - 15:29 cve.org

HIGH 7.1

DescriptionCVE.org

Kong Operator's embedded Kong Kubernetes Ingress Controller (KIC) allows a user with namespace-scoped Secret creation privileges to cause a cluster-wide ingress configuration denial of service. The embedded KIC collects CA-certificate Secrets across all watched namespaces using a label selector alone, without ingress-class or namespace restrictions. The CA-certificate primary key is derived from a user-supplied field in the Secret. Duplicate CA-certificate IDs cause Kong Gateway to reject the entire configuration document and halting all ingress changes cluster-wide.

Articles & Coverage 1

News 3 New Kubernetes Vulnerabilities - 1 Critical, 2 High, 1 With POC Jul 30, 2026

AnalysisAI

Cluster-wide ingress denial of service in Kong Operator's embedded Kong Kubernetes Ingress Controller (KIC) lets a tenant holding only namespace-scoped Secret creation rights halt all ingress configuration changes across the entire cluster. Because the embedded KIC gathers CA-certificate Secrets from every watched namespace using only a label selector - with no ingress-class or namespace scoping - an attacker can plant a Secret whose user-controlled CA-certificate ID collides with an existing one, causing Kong Gateway to reject the whole configuration document. This is a missing-authorization (CWE-862) flaw reported by Kong; no public exploit identified at time of analysis and it is not listed in CISA KEV.

Technical ContextAI

Kong Operator deploys and manages Kong Gateway on Kubernetes and bundles the Kong Ingress Controller (KIC), which translates Kubernetes objects (Ingress, Secrets, plugins) into a single declarative Kong configuration document. Kong supports CA certificates as first-class entities keyed by a primary 'id'. In the affected build, KIC discovers CA-certificate Secrets purely via a Kubernetes label selector applied cluster-wide across all watched namespaces, ignoring ingress-class annotations and namespace boundaries that normally isolate multi-tenant workloads. The CA-certificate primary key (id) is taken from a user-supplied field inside the Secret rather than being derived from a trusted, uniqueness-guaranteed source. This maps to CWE-862 (Missing Authorization): the controller acts on tenant-controlled input from namespaces the tenant should not be able to influence globally, and Kong Gateway's admission of the config document enforces uniqueness on CA-cert IDs, so a duplicate makes the entire document invalid.

Affected ProductsAI

Kong Operator with its embedded Kong Kubernetes Ingress Controller (KIC) is affected; specific fixed and vulnerable version ranges are not enumerated in the provided data and should be read directly from the vendor security advisory at https://github.com/Kong/kong-operator/security/advisories/GHSA-h4fh-j7xg-vwcx. No CPE strings were supplied in this intelligence set, so exact version boundaries are not independently confirmed here. Deployments running Kong Gateway configured through the operator's bundled KIC in multi-tenant clusters (multiple teams with namespace-scoped Secret creation rights) are the exposed configurations.

RemediationAI

Consult and apply the Kong GitHub Security Advisory GHSA-h4fh-j7xg-vwcx (https://github.com/Kong/kong-operator/security/advisories/GHSA-h4fh-j7xg-vwcx) and upgrade to the fixed Kong Operator release it names - a specific patched version was not included in this data and must be taken from the advisory (do not assume a version). As compensating controls until patched: restrict who can create Secrets carrying the CA-certificate label by tightening RBAC so only trusted operators can create those labeled Secrets (trade-off: legitimate self-service CA provisioning by tenants is blocked); use admission control (e.g., Kyverno/OPA Gatekeeper) to enforce uniqueness and namespace/ingress-class scoping on CA-certificate Secret IDs and reject tenant-supplied duplicate IDs (trade-off: added policy maintenance and possible false rejections); and scope KIC to specific namespaces or ingress classes rather than watching all namespaces if your KIC configuration supports it (trade-off: multi-namespace ingress must be explicitly enrolled). Monitor Kong Gateway config-push rejection errors as a detection signal for duplicate CA-cert IDs.