Vulnerability record · CVE-2026-77968 · published 8 September 2026
CVE-2026-77968: Improper privilege management vulnerability
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.
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.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:N
References
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Related vulnerabilities
Same products first, then exploited flaws of the same weakness class.
Source: NIST National Vulnerability Database (record CVE-2026-77968), CISA KEV, FIRST EPSS (scores of 2026-09-26). This page is refreshed as NVD updates the record.