CVE-2026-77968Hawtio-operator: hawtio-operator: cluster-wide secrets read/write granted to operator serviceaccount
- 8.2HighCVSS base score
- 0.42%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 63% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- NonePublic exploitsnone known yet
Description
A flaw was found in hawtio-operator. The operator's ClusterRole grants secrets: [create, get, list, update, watch] across all namespaces. While the operator uses a controller-runtime label-selector cache as a memory optimization, the ServiceAccount token authorizes read access to every Secret in the cluster. The operator also bypasses the cache via direct API calls. Compromise of the operator pod would yield read access to every Secret in the cluster, including bootstrap tokens, cloud credentials, and other operators' secrets.
Timeline
ID reserved
By redhat
- 12 days later
· 12 days later
Published
Changes after publication (a new score, a public exploit, EPSS crossing 1, 10 or 50 %, leaving KEV) are kept since November 2026; earlier ones are not known.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| redhatCNA (assigner) | 3.1 | High8.2 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:N |
| NVDNVD · Awaiting Analysis | 3.1 | High8.2 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:N |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 0.42% · top 63% of all CVEs (12 Nov 2026)
- CISA SSVC
- Exploitation: none · Automatable: no · Technical impact: total
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: High 8.2.
Affected products
Red Hat · Red Hat build of Apache Camel - HawtIO 4
All versions: affected
Red Hat · Red Hat build of Apache Camel - HawtIO 4
All versions: affected
What to do
Workaround: Restrict access to the hawtio-operator namespace and limit who can exec into the operator pod. Monitor cluster audit logs for unexpected Secret access patterns from the hawtio-operator ServiceAccount. As a defence-in-depth measure, apply a NetworkPolicy to the operator namespace restricting egress to only the Kubernetes API server and required service endpoints.
References
References2
- https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-77968 (opens in a new tab)vdb-entryx_refsource_REDHAT
- RHBZ#2524896 (opens in a new tab)issue-trackingx_refsource_REDHAT
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- EUVD EUVD-2026-72692 (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisories (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2026-77968)Record last updated .