CVE-2026-22039 | Kyverno Cross-Namespace Privilege Escalation via Policy apiCall

Exp

Kyverno is a policy engine designed for cloud native platform engineering teams. Versions prior to 1.16.3 and 1.15.3 have a critical authorization boundary bypass in namespaced Kyverno Policy apiCall. The resolved `urlPath` is executed using the Kyverno admission controller ServiceAccount, with no enforcement that the request is limited to the policy’s namespace. As a result, any authenticated user with permission to create a namespaced Policy can cause Kyverno to perform Kubernetes API requests using Kyverno’s admission controller identity, targeting any API path allowed by that ServiceAccount’s RBAC. This breaks namespace isolation by enabling cross-namespace reads (for example, ConfigMaps and, where permitted, Secrets) and allows cluster-scoped or cross-namespace writes (for example, creating ClusterPolicies) by controlling the urlPath through context variable substitution. Versions 1.16.3 and 1.15.3 contain a patch for the vulnerability.

Published: 2026-01-27 Last update: 2026-02-02 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2026-22039 is rated High Exploit Risk (69/100): CVSS Critical severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.52%). Core evidence: 1 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). Mandatory action: Public exploits are available—assess exposure, apply mitigations, and prioritize patching.

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

Public exploit references (Exploit-DB) for CVE-2026-22039

EDB-ID Source Kind Published Link
nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2026-22039

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 2026-06-15 0.02% 0.52% +0.49%
2 2026-04-21 0.05% 0.02% -0.03%
3 2026-02-28 0.05%

Full EPSS history (4 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2026-22039

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
9.9 3.1 CRITICAL
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H 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:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:C)
Breaking this can reach past the original component and bite other resources—bigger blast radius.
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:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
3.1 6.0 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2026-22039

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2026-22039

GHSA-8p9x-46gm-qfx2 · Severity: critical · Ecosystem: go — Kyverno Cross-Namespace Privilege Escalation via Policy apiCall

OS Trackers for CVE-2026-22039

vendor priority summary link
suse critical https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-22039/

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2026-22039

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
kyverno kyverno < 1.15.3 cpe:2.3:a:kyverno:kyverno:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
kyverno kyverno >= 1.16.0, < 1.16.3 cpe:2.3:a:kyverno:kyverno:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2026-22039

cvelogic Threat Intelligence