CVE-2023-2728 | Bypassing enforce mountable secrets policy imposed by the ServiceAccount admission plugin

Users may be able to launch containers that bypass the mountable secrets policy enforced by the ServiceAccount admission plugin when using ephemeral containers. The policy ensures pods running with a service account may only reference secrets specified in the service account’s secrets field. Kubernetes clusters are only affected if the ServiceAccount admission plugin and the `kubernetes.io/enforce-mountable-secrets` annotation are used together with ephemeral containers.

Published: 2023-07-03 Last update: 2026-06-17 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]
NVD Status：Modified，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2023-2728 is rated Moderate Risk (54.2/100): CVSS Medium severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 2.16%). Review affected assets and schedule remediation.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2023-2728

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-06-16 1.83% 2.16% +0.33%
2 2026-06-15 4.85% 1.83% -3.03%
3 2026-05-25 — 4.85% —

Full EPSS history (62 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2023-2728

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
6.5 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:H)
They need powerful rights—admin, root, or similar—before this pays off.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 1.2 5.2 [email protected]
6.5 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:H)
They need powerful rights—admin, root, or similar—before this pays off.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
 1.2 5.2 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2023-2728

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2023-2728

GHSA-cgcv-5272-97pr · Severity: medium · Ecosystem: go — Kubernetes mountable secrets policy bypass

OS Trackers for CVE-2023-2728

vendor priority summary link
alpine — CVE-2023-2728: 1 source package rows (k3s); 6 state rows across 6 repos (3.18-community, 3.19-community, 3.20-community, 3.21-community, 3.22-community, edge-community); fixed 6, open 0. https://security.alpinelinux.org/vuln/CVE-2023-2728
debian not yet assigned CVE-2023-2728 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 1 source packages (kubernetes), 5 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 5. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2023-2728
redhat medium — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-2728
suse medium CVE-2023-2728 severity moderate: SUSE including 63 source package names (govulncheck-vulndb-0.0.20250807T150727-1.1, govulncheck-vulndb-0.0.20250814T182633-160000.1.2, …), 178 product×package rows across 27 product lines (SUSE CaaS Platform 4.0, SUSE Enterprise Storage 7, … (27 product lines)): Fixed 162, Will Not Fix 14, Known Not Affected 2. https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-2728/
ubuntu medium CVE-2023-2728 medium priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (kubernetes), 12 status rows across 12 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, kinetic, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, trusty, upstream, xenial): ignored 7, not-affected 3, DNE 1, released 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2023-2728

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2023-2728

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
kubernetes kubernetes <= 1.24.14 cpe:2.3:a:kubernetes:kubernetes:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
kubernetes kubernetes >= 1.25.0, <= 1.25.10 cpe:2.3:a:kubernetes:kubernetes:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
kubernetes kubernetes >= 1.26.0, <= 1.26.5 cpe:2.3:a:kubernetes:kubernetes:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
kubernetes kubernetes >= 1.27.0, <= 1.27.2 cpe:2.3:a:kubernetes:kubernetes:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2023-2728

cvelogic Threat Intelligence