---
id: CVE-2026-42876
title: 'External Secrets Operator: Privilege escalation with secret overwriting'
summary: >-
  External Secrets Operator reads information from a third-party service and
  automatically injects the values as Kubernetes Secrets. Prior to 2.4.1, a user
  who only has permission to create ExternalSecret resources can cause the
  operator t…
severity: medium
cvss: 4.9
cvssVector: 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N'
cvssSource: cna
cwe:
  - CWE-285
vendor: external-secrets
product: external-secrets
affected:
  - external-secrets < 2.4.1
ssvc:
  exploitation: none
  automatable: 'no'
  technicalImpact: partial
  timestamp: '2026-05-12T13:26:08.541848Z'
published: '2026-05-11'
updated: '2026-10-06'
sourceUpdated: '2026-10-06T15:30:23.871Z'
source: CVEORG
sourceUrl: 'https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-42876'
references:
  - url: >-
      https://github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets/security/advisories/GHSA-fq7h-9x26-6j22
    label: >-
      https://github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets/security/advisories/GHSA-fq7h-9x26-6j22
  - url: >-
      https://github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets/commit/4ddd240af7fe88725d9857b9a0c198073502e288
    label: >-
      https://github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets/commit/4ddd240af7fe88725d9857b9a0c198073502e288
  - url: 'https://github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets/releases/tag/v2.4.1'
    label: 'https://github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets/releases/tag/v2.4.1'
tags:
  - cve.org
epss: 0.00257
epssPercentile: 0.15823
ingestedAt: '2026-10-06T16:04:04.485Z'
---

## Overview

External Secrets Operator reads information from a third-party service and automatically injects the values as Kubernetes Secrets. Prior to 2.4.1, a user who only has permission to create ExternalSecret resources can cause the operator to create a Secret that Kubernetes will automatically populate with a long-lived token for the specified service account. This effectively allows the user to impersonate any service account in the namespace without needing direct create permissions on TokenRequest or Secrets of that type. This vulnerability is fixed in 2.4.1.

## Affected

- `external-secrets < 2.4.1`

## Remediation

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