---
id: CVE-2025-71426
title: Contrast is a confidential-computing runtime for Kubernetes
summary: >-
  Contrast is a confidential-computing runtime for Kubernetes. In versions
  before 1.4.1, a recovering Coordinator does not verify the seed supplied by
  the recovering party. An attacker can therefore stand up a rogue Coordinator
  whose manif…
severity: high
cvss: 7.1
cvssVector: 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:L/I:H/A:N'
cwe:
  - CWE-285
vendor: edgelesssys
product: contrast
affected:
  - contrast < 1.4.1
published: '2026-09-27'
updated: '2026-09-27'
sourceUpdated: '2026-09-27T02:17:17.160'
source: NVD
sourceUrl: 'https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-71426'
references:
  - url: >-
      https://github.com/edgelesssys/contrast/security/advisories/GHSA-vqv5-385r-2hf8
    label: disclosure@vulncheck.com
  - url: >-
      https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/contrast-before-1.4.1-coordinator-impersonation-via-unauthenticated-recovery
    label: disclosure@vulncheck.com
tags:
  - nvd
  - cve.org
ingestedAt: '2026-09-27T02:41:45.564Z'
---

## Overview

Contrast is a confidential-computing runtime for Kubernetes. In versions before 1.4.1, a recovering Coordinator does not verify the seed supplied by the recovering party. An attacker can therefore stand up a rogue Coordinator whose manifest passes validation but whose secret seed is attacker-controlled. If network traffic is redirected from the legitimate Coordinator to the attacker's Coordinator, a workload owner can be impersonated when they either set a new manifest without comparing the returned root CA certificate against the existing one (the default behavior of the contrast CLI) or verify the Coordinator without comparing the root CA certificate against a trusted reference. Under these conditions the attacker can issue certificates that chain back to the rogue Coordinator's root CA and recover arbitrary workload secrets of workloads deployed after the attack. Secrets of the legitimate Coordinator (seed, workload secrets, CA), workload integrity, and certificates chaining to the mesh CA are not affected.

## Remediation

Refer to the linked advisories for vendor-supplied fixes and affected version ranges.