Vulnerability · Published Oct 14, 2026 · Assigned by GitHub_M
CVE-2026-77524KEDA: Privilege escalation from namespace admin to cluster admin via KEDA TriggerAuthentication
Critical 9.9
In plain English
A critical-severity privilege mismanagement in keda from kedacore. Proof-of-concept exploit code is public. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.6% (higher than 49% of all known vulnerabilities). Fixed versions are available - upgrade the affected package.
Official description
KEDA is a Kubernetes-based Event Driven Autoscaling component. In version 2.20.2 and earlier, a namespace administrator who can create TriggerAuthentication and ScaledObject resources can set hashiCorpVault.address to a tenant-controlled endpoint and select Kubernetes authentication without an explicit credential. KEDA then uses the operator pod's projected ServiceAccount token and sends it to that endpoint as a Vault login credential. The JWT-shape filter from the prior CVE-2025-68476 remediation accepts the operator token because its subject is a Kubernetes ServiceAccount, so the attacker can obtain the operator's cluster-wide permissions, including broad Secret reads and workload or admission-related operations. This vulnerability is fixed in 2.21.0.
Affected packages & fixed versions
| Ecosystem | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Go | github.com/kedacore/keda | no fix listed | GHSA-637c-6jxx-4rwm |
| Go | github.com/kedacore/keda | no fix listed | GO-2026-6776 |
| Go | github.com/kedacore/keda/v2 | 2.21.0 | GHSA-637c-6jxx-4rwm |
| Go | github.com/kedacore/keda/v2 | 2.21.0 | GO-2026-6776 |
Affected products (as reported)
Weakness: CWE-269, CWE-918 · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
References
- https://github.com/kedacore/keda/security/advisories/GHSA-637c-6jxx-4rwm x_refsource_CONFIRM
- https://github.com/kedacore/keda/commit/1e21cc798dedd079e696cdb45388eddc5e18365d x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/kedacore/keda/releases/tag/v2.21.0 x_refsource_MISC