Severity by source
AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:N
Exploited over the K8s API (AV:N/AC:L), needs only tenant create rights on the policy object (PR:L), no interaction, and abuses the controller's cluster identity across namespaces (S:C) with high C/I but no availability loss.
Primary rating from Vendor (GitHub_M).
CVSS VectorVendor: GitHub_M
Lifecycle Timeline
4DescriptionCVE.org
Kyverno is a policy engine designed for cloud native platform engineering teams. From 1.18.0 until 1.18.2, the NamespacedMutatingPolicy CEL compiler exposes the generator library to matchConditions, allowing a namespace-scoped policy to invoke generator.apply(namespace, resources) with an arbitrary target namespace. The validation in pkg/cel/policies/mpol/validate.go checks that the policy compiles but does not enforce namespace scope, and GenerateResources in pkg/cel/libs/context.go does not reject the cross-namespace target. A user who can create NamespacedMutatingPolicy objects in one namespace can cause the admission controller, operating with cluster-wide privileges, to create ConfigMaps, NetworkPolicies, Secrets, RoleBindings, and other resources in another namespace, enabling unauthorized modification and potential privilege escalation. This issue is fixed in version 1.18.2.
AnalysisAI
Cross-namespace privilege escalation in Kyverno 1.18.0-1.18.1 lets any tenant who can create a NamespacedMutatingPolicy in their own namespace force the cluster-privileged admission controller to generate resources (ConfigMaps, Secrets, NetworkPolicies, RoleBindings) in arbitrary namespaces, including kube-system. The nmpol CEL compiler unintentionally exposes the generator library to matchConditions, and neither the mpol validator nor GenerateResources enforces namespace scope on the generator.apply() target. …
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Attack ChainAIDerived
Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata
Vulnerability AssessmentAI
| Exploitation | The attacker must be an authenticated Kubernetes user (PR:L) holding 'create' permission on namespacedmutatingpolicies.policies.kyverno.io within at least one namespace, and the cluster must run Kyverno 1.18.0 or 1.18.1 with the NamespacedMutatingPolicy (nmpol) feature reachable. … Additional conditions and limiting factors are described in the full assessment. |
| Risk Assessment | This is a genuine high-priority issue for multi-tenant clusters, not merely a high-CVSS paper cut. … Full risk analysis with EPSS, KEV, and SSVC signal comparison available after sign-in. |
| Exploit Scenario | Full exploit scenario with step-by-step reproduction available after sign-in. |
| Remediation | Upgrade to Kyverno v1.18.2, which threads the policy namespace into the generator CEL library and rejects any generator.apply() whose target namespace differs from the policy's own namespace, and additionally denies cluster-scoped generation from namespaced policies (Vendor-released patch: 1.18.2; see https://github.com/kyverno/kyverno/releases/tag/v1.18.2 and PR https://github.com/kyverno/kyverno/pull/16238, commits 0919553c0ea1904f8d891280c92018da97946a06 and 5164bcdeda5b57678bc2d7a03ecc2cbb02982dae). … Detailed patch versions, workarounds, and compensating controls in full report. |
Recommended ActionAI
Within 24 hours: Inventory all Kyverno deployments and identify those running versions 1.18.0 or 1.18.1; assess tenant access controls and review recent resource creation logs in system namespaces for indicators of exploitation. …
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Same weakness CWE-862 – Missing Authorization
View allSame technique Privilege Escalation
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External POC / Exploit Code
Leaving vuln.today
EUVD-2026-66561
GHSA-79gf-7frw-68m9