Vulnerability · Published Sep 15, 2026 · Assigned by GitHub_M

CVE-2026-55226Strimzi: Unrestricted access to all Secrets within namespace watched by the Topic operator

Medium 5.4

In plain English

A medium-severity privilege mismanagement in strimzi-kafka-operator from strimzi. There are no confirmed reports of exploitation so far. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.2% (higher than 16% of all known vulnerabilities). Fixed versions are available - upgrade the affected package.

Severity (CVSS 3.1)5.4Medium

Exploit odds (30 days)0.2%top 83.6% of all CVEs

Exploited in the wildNo reportsCISA SSVC: none

Attack toolingNoneno public tooling known

Official 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, deploying only the Topic Operator or only the User Operator through the Kafka custom resource leaves the Entity Operator ServiceAccount with RBAC permissions for both components. The excess permissions can allow access to KafkaUser custom resources and Secrets when the User Operator is absent, or access to KafkaTopic custom resources when the Topic Operator is absent. This issue is fixed in versions 1.0.1 and 1.1.0.

Affected packages & fixed versions

Ecosystem	Package	Fixed in	Advisory
Maven	io.strimzi:strimzi	1.0.1	GHSA-r427-j2h7-wv3m

Affected products (as reported)

Vendor	Product	Versions
strimzi	strimzi-kafka-operator	< 1.0.1

Weakness: CWE-269, CWE-272 · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:L/A:N

References

https://github.com/strimzi/strimzi-kafka-operator/security/advisories/GHSA-r427-j2h7-wv3m x_refsource_CONFIRM
https://github.com/strimzi/strimzi-kafka-operator/pull/12844 x_refsource_MISC
https://github.com/strimzi/strimzi-kafka-operator/commit/b3bfeffcc30754c3e62e6f4afd8a76942cac440d x_refsource_MISC
https://github.com/strimzi/strimzi-kafka-operator/commit/f6c5207ba7ec89b46ce6720b8638d647e556a261 x_refsource_MISC
https://github.com/strimzi/strimzi-kafka-operator/releases/tag/1.0.1 x_refsource_MISC
https://github.com/strimzi/strimzi-kafka-operator/releases/tag/1.1.0 x_refsource_MISC