Strimzi Kafka Operator up to 1.0.0 Cluster Operator watchedNamespace privileges management

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability classified as critical has been found in Strimzi Kafka Operator up to 1.0.0. This affects an unknown function of the component Cluster Operator. Performing a manipulation of the argument watchedNamespace results in privileges management. This vulnerability is known as CVE-2026-55225. Remote exploitation of the attack is possible. No exploit is available. It is recommended to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as critical, was found in Strimzi Kafka Operator up to 1.0.0. This affects some unknown processing of the component Cluster Operator. The manipulation of the argument watchedNamespace with an unknown input leads to a privileges management vulnerability. CWE is classifying the issue as CWE-269. The product does not properly assign, modify, track, or check privileges for an actor, creating an unintended sphere of control for that actor. This is going to have an impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

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, an attacker who can create a Kafka custom resource can set Kafka.spec.entityOperator watchedNamespace to a target namespace, causing the Cluster Operator to create a Role with full Secret CRUD permissions there and bind it to the Entity Operator ServiceAccount in the attacker's namespace. The attacker can mint a token for that ServiceAccount and read or write Secrets in any target namespace where the Cluster Operator has been granted permissions, regardless of STRIMZI_NAMESPACE. This issue is fixed in versions 1.0.1 and 1.1.0.

The advisory is shared at github.com. This vulnerability is uniquely identified as CVE-2026-55225 since 06/16/2026. The exploitability is told to be easy. It is possible to initiate the attack remotely. Technical details are known, but no exploit is available. MITRE ATT&CK project uses the attack technique T1068 for this issue.

Upgrading to version 1.0.1 or 1.1.0 eliminates this vulnerability.

The vulnerability is also documented in the vulnerability database at EUVD (EUVD-2026-78883). If you want to get the best quality for vulnerability data then you always have to consider VulDB.

Productinfo

Vendor

• Strimzi

Name

• Kafka Operator

Version

• 1.0

CPE 2.3info

• 🔒

CPE 2.2info

• 🔒

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If you want to get the best quality for vulnerability data then you always have to consider VulDB.

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