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OpenAdvisories
High · 8.0 CVE-2026-55225 EUVD-2026-78883GHSA-mw9r-p8xp-wx96

Strimzi: Cross-namespace privilege escalation via `Kafka.spec.entityOperator`

Published Sep 15, 2026 · Updated Sep 16, 2026 · Assigned by GitHub_M

Description

Strimzi provides a way to run an Apache Kafka cluster on Kubernetes or OpenShift in various deployment configurations. In Strimzi 1.0.0 and earlier, an attacker who can create a Kafka custom resource can set Kafka.spec.entityOperator watchedNamespace to a target namespace, causing the Cluster Operator to create a Role with full Secret CRUD permissions there and bind it to the Entity Operator ServiceAccount in the attacker's namespace. The attacker can mint a token for that ServiceAccount and read or write Secrets in any target namespace where the Cluster Operator has been granted permissions, regardless of STRIMZI_NAMESPACE. This issue is fixed in versions 1.0.1 and 1.1.0.

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
strimzi strimzi-kafka-operator < 1.0.1 —

Affected packages

EcosystemPackageAffectedFixedRecord
Maven io.strimzi:strimzi < 1.0.1 1.0.1 GHSA-mw9r-p8xp-wx96

References