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OpenAdvisories
Critical · 9.3 CVE-2026-22822 EUVD-2026-3404GHSA-77v3-r3jw-j2v2GO-2026-4330

External Secrets Operator insecurely retrieves secrets through the getSecretKey templating function

Published Jan 21, 2026 · Updated Jul 15, 2026 · Assigned by GitHub_M

Description

External Secrets Operator reads information from a third-party service and automatically injects the values as Kubernetes Secrets. Starting in version 0.20.2 and prior to version 1.2.0, the `getSecretKey` template function, while introduced for senhasegura Devops Secrets Management (DSM) provider, has the ability to fetch secrets cross-namespaces with the roleBinding of the external-secrets controller, bypassing our security mechanisms. This function was completely removed in version 1.2.0, as everything done with that templating function can be done in a different way while respecting External Secrets Operator's safeguards As a workaround, use a policy engine such as Kubernetes, Kyverno, Kubewarden, or OPA to prevent the usage of `getSecretKey` in any ExternalSecret resource.

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
external-secrets external-secrets >= 0.20.2, < 1.2.0 —

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
openSUSE Leap 16.0 govulncheck-vulndb 0.0.20260723T184607-160000.1.1 openSUSE-SU-2026:21483-1
openSUSE Leap 15.6 govulncheck-vulndb 0.0.20260205T172317-150000.1.146.1 SUSE-SU-2026:0403-1

Wolfi

ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Wolfi rolling external-secrets-operator-1.1 No fix yet —

Affected packages

EcosystemPackageAffectedFixedRecord
Go github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets >= 0.20.2, < 1.2.0 1.2.0 GHSA-77v3-r3jw-j2v2

Advisories 2

References