Namespace Scope Bypass in Kyverno Policy Engine
CVE-2026-54523

9.6CRITICAL

Key Information:

Vendor

Kyverno

Status
Kyverno
Vendor
CVE Published:
26 August 2026

What is CVE-2026-54523?

A vulnerability in the Kyverno policy engine allows a NamespacedMutatingPolicy to invoke actions across namespaces due to insufficient validation in its CEL compiler. This oversight permits users to create resources like ConfigMaps or Secrets in unauthorized namespaces, heightening the risk of privilege escalation. Fixed in version 1.18.2, the vulnerability demonstrates the critical importance of enforcing strict namespace scoping and validation in cloud-native applications.

Affected Version(s)

kyverno >= 1.18.0, < 1.18.2

References

https://github.com/kyverno/kyverno/security/advisories/GH...
x_refsource_CONFIRM
https://github.com/kyverno/kyverno/pull/16238
x_refsource_MISC
https://github.com/kyverno/kyverno/commit/0919553c0ea1904...
x_refsource_MISC

CVSS V3.1

Score:
9.6
Severity:
CRITICAL
Confidentiality:
High
Integrity:
High
Availability:
High
Attack Vector:
Network
Attack Complexity:
Low
Privileges Required:
Low
User Interaction:
None
Scope:
Changed

Timeline

  • Vulnerability published

  • Vulnerability Reserved

.