CVE-2026-39961: Aiven Operator has cross-namespace secret exfiltration via ClickhouseUser connInfoSecretSource
Description
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.
Vector CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N · CWE-269, CWE-441
Tracked companies
Mapped from the CVE’s affected-product data, NVD CPE matches, vendor advisories or package feeds. A mapping means the vendor’s software is named, not that its hosted service was exposed.
Status incidents that name it
No tracked status incident names this CVE.
Affected vendors and products
aiven: aiven-operator
References
- CVE record on cve.org (opens in new tab)
- NVD entry (opens in new tab)
- github.com/aiven/aiven-operator/commit/032c9ba63257fdd2fddfb7f73f71830e371ff182 (opens in new tab)
- github.com/aiven/aiven-operator/releases/tag/v0.37.0 (opens in new tab)
- github.com/aiven/aiven-operator/security/advisories/GHSA-99j8-wv67-4c72 (opens in new tab)
- CVE records from the CVE Program (cve.org). CVE® is a registered trademark of The MITRE Corporation. (opens in new tab)
- This product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. (opens in new tab)
- Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog from CISA. (opens in new tab)
- EPSS scores from FIRST (Exploit Prediction Scoring System). (opens in new tab)