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OpenAdvisories
High · 8.2 CVE-2023-26484 EUVD-2023-0987GHSA-cp96-jpmq-xrr2

On a compromised KubeVirt node, the virt-handler service account can be used to modify all node specs

Published Mar 15, 2023 · Updated Feb 25, 2025 · Assigned by GitHub_M

Description

KubeVirt is a virtual machine management add-on for Kubernetes. In versions 0.59.0 and prior, if a malicious user has taken over a Kubernetes node where virt-handler (the KubeVirt node-daemon) is running, the virt-handler service account can be used to modify all node specs. This can be misused to lure-in system-level-privileged components which can, for instance, read all secrets on the cluster, or can exec into pods on other nodes. This way, a compromised node can be used to elevate privileges beyond the node until potentially having full privileged access to the whole cluster. The simplest way to exploit this, once a user could compromise a specific node, is to set with the virt-handler service account all other nodes to unschedulable and simply wait until system-critical components with high privileges appear on its node. No patches are available as of time of publication. As a workaround, gatekeeper users can add a webhook which will block the `virt-handler` service account to modify the spec of a node.

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
kubevirt kubevirt <= 0.59.0 —

Fixed in Linux distributions

Distributions backport fixes, so the version that fixes this vulnerability differs per release — upgrade to at least the version shown. From the distributions' security trackers and advisories.

ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
SLES 15 SP4 kubevirt 0.54.0-150400.3.13.1 SUSE-SU-2023:1967-1
Show 2 more (older releases, extended support, other products)
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
SLE Micro 5.4 kubevirt 0.54.0-150400.3.13.1 SUSE-SU-2023:1967-1
SLE Micro 5.3 kubevirt 0.54.0-150400.3.13.1 SUSE-SU-2023:1967-1
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
openSUSE Tumbleweed kubevirt 0.59.0-2.1 openSUSE-SU-2024:12792-1
openSUSE Tumbleweed kubevirt1.8 +1 1.8.3-1.1 openSUSE-SU-2026:11091-1, openSUSE-SU-2026:11057-1
openSUSE Leap 15.4 kubevirt 0.54.0-150400.3.13.1 SUSE-SU-2023:1967-1
Show 1 more (older releases, extended support, other products)
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
openSUSE Leap Micro 5.3 kubevirt 0.54.0-150400.3.13.1 SUSE-SU-2023:1967-1

Azure Linux

ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Azure Linux 3 kubevirt 1.2.0-1 —
Azure Linux 2 (CBL-Mariner) kubevirt 0.59.0-20 —

Affected packages

EcosystemPackageAffectedFixedRecord
Go kubevirt.io/kubevirt <= 0.59.0 — GHSA-cp96-jpmq-xrr2

Advisories 4

References