EUVD-2026-20965
GHSA-99j8-wv67-4c72
Severity by source
AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N
Primary rating from GitHub Advisory.
CVSS VectorGitHub Advisory
Lifecycle Timeline
4DescriptionGitHub Advisory
Aiven Operator allows you to provision and manage Aiven Services from your Kubernetes cluster. From 0.31.0 to before 0.37.0, a developer with create permission on ClickhouseUser CRDs in their own namespace can exfiltrate secrets from any other namespace - production database credentials, API keys, service tokens - with a single kubectl apply. The operator reads the victim's secret using its ClusterRole and writes the password into a new secret in the attacker's namespace. The operator acts as a confused deputy: its ServiceAccount has cluster-wide secret read/write (aiven-operator-role ClusterRole), and it trusts user-supplied namespace values in spec.connInfoSecretSource.namespace without validation. No admission webhook enforces this boundary - the ServiceUser webhook returns nil, and no ClickhouseUser webhook exists. This vulnerability is fixed in 0.37.0.
AnalysisAI
Aiven Operator versions 0.31.0 through 0.36.x allow developers with ClickhouseUser CRD creation permissions in their own namespace to exfiltrate secrets from arbitrary namespaces by exploiting a confused deputy vulnerability in the operator's ClusterRole. An attacker can craft a malicious ClickhouseUser resource that causes the operator to read privileged credentials (database passwords, API keys, service tokens) from production namespaces and write them into the attacker's namespace with a single kubectl apply command. The vulnerability is fixed in version 0.37.0.
Technical ContextAI
Aiven Operator is a Kubernetes controller that provisions and manages Aiven cloud services through custom resource definitions (CRDs). The vulnerability stems from insufficient validation in the spec.connInfoSecretSource.namespace field of the ClickhouseUser CRD. The operator's ServiceAccount is granted a broad ClusterRole (aiven-operator-role) with cluster-wide secret read and write permissions, following least-privilege failure patterns. When processing ClickhouseUser resources, the operator trusts user-supplied namespace values without validation, allowing an attacker to reference secrets in other namespaces. This is a classic confused deputy problem (CWE-269: Improper Access Control): the operator, trusted to read secrets in its own scope, is manipulated into accessing resources outside intended boundaries because no admission webhook (neither the ServiceUser webhook nor a ClickhouseUser-specific webhook) enforces namespace isolation at the API server level. The operator reads the victim namespace's secret using its elevated permissions and writes the extracted credentials into a new secret in the attacker's namespace.
RemediationAI
Vendor-released patch: upgrade Aiven Operator to version 0.37.0 or later. This release includes the fix that validates namespace values in spec.connInfoSecretSource.namespace and implements proper admission controls to prevent cross-namespace secret access. Users should deploy the patched version immediately to all Kubernetes clusters running affected versions. Additionally, as an interim mitigation until upgrade is possible, restrict RBAC permissions for ClickhouseUser CRD creation to trusted personnel only and audit existing ClickhouseUser resources for potentially malicious namespace references in spec.connInfoSecretSource. See the GitHub security advisory at https://github.com/aiven/aiven-operator/security/advisories/GHSA-99j8-wv67-4c72 for additional details and the release notes at https://github.com/aiven/aiven-operator/releases/tag/v0.37.0 for upgrade instructions.
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View allVendor StatusVendor
SUSE
Severity: Moderate| Product | Status |
|---|---|
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 16.1 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP applications 16.1 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Package Hub 15 SP5 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Package Hub 15 SP6 | Affected |
| openSUSE Leap 15.5 | Affected |
| openSUSE Leap 15.6 | Affected |
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