Vulnerability · Published Oct 30, 2026 · Assigned by GitHub_M
CVE-2026-61850Kargo: Privilege escalation via Project RBAC management in the Kargo API
Critical 9.3
In plain English
A critical-severity privilege mismanagement in kargo from akuity. There are no confirmed reports of exploitation so far. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.4% (higher than 30% of all known vulnerabilities).
Official description
Kargo manages and automates the promotion of software artifacts. From 0.6.0 until 1.8.14, 1.9.9, and 1.10.8, two authorization flaws in the `project-scoped RBAC API` let an authenticated user with delegated permission to manage a Project's `Roles` or `ServiceAccounts` confer permissions exceeding the user's own. A user authorized to edit `Roles` can create, replace, or add rules granting permissions not held by the user; a user authorized to edit a Role's ServiceAccount can bind an identity, including the user's own, to a more powerful Role. A Kargo Role comprises a `ServiceAccount, Role, and RoleBinding` in the Project namespace. Changes are written using the API server's broadly privileged credentials after only a coarse resource-kind edit check, rather than checking each permission being conferred. This permits escalation to Project-administrator access, disclosure of `Project Secrets` and credentials, and modification or deletion of Project resources. Stolen Git, container-registry, or Helm-registry credentials can extend confidentiality and integrity impacts to those external systems. Escalation remains limited to Projects where the attacker already has RBAC-management delegation and does not itself grant cluster-wide or cross-Project access. Default non-administrator roles do not permit these operations; exploitation requires an `administrator-created custom role` granting the relevant permissions and control of an account assigned that role. This issue is fixed in versions 1.8.14, 1.9.9, and 1.10.8.
Affected products (as reported)
Weakness: CWE-269 · Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:H/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:H/SI:H/SA:L
References
- https://github.com/akuity/kargo/security/advisories/GHSA-wp4p-hr79-q4g8 x_refsource_CONFIRM
- https://github.com/akuity/kargo/commit/19639678811b486bddb014dabb25397771f3941e x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/akuity/kargo/commit/50d29c10153965114f903645c83eadbe7bf58d3f x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/akuity/kargo/commit/5ab7c4216a4151f55ea8ef9ff3b9f884dd322578 x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/akuity/kargo/commit/72fadd3600b35e6dce67042eb686720a48b45fa3 x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/akuity/kargo/releases/tag/v1.10.8 x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/akuity/kargo/releases/tag/v1.11.0-rc.1 x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/akuity/kargo/releases/tag/v1.8.14 x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/akuity/kargo/releases/tag/v1.9.9 x_refsource_MISC