When the Strimzi cluster operator is deployed with watchAnyNamespace=true (or a multi-namespace list), any namespace editor can set Kafka.spec.entityOperator.userOperator.watchedNamespace (or topicOperator.watchedNamespace) to an arbitrary namespace. The cluster operator then creates a Role granting full CRUD on Secrets in the target namespace and a RoleBinding pointing to a ServiceAccount in the attacker's namespace — effectively granting cluster-admin-equivalent access via kube-system secret exfiltration. The RBAC objects created cross-namespace have their ownerReferences deliberately stripped, making the privilege grant persistent even after the Kafka CR or attacker namespace is deleted. Fixed in Strimzi 1.0.1 and 1.1.0 by adding a dedicated environment variable to explicitly enable the watched namespace feature (disabled by default).

Project Subscriptions

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Advisories
Source ID Title
Github GHSA Github GHSA GHSA-mw9r-p8xp-wx96 Strimzi: Cross-namespace privilege escalation via `Kafka.spec.entityOperator`
Fixes

Solution

No solution given by the vendor.


Workaround

No workaround given by the vendor.

History

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 16:45:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description When the Strimzi cluster operator is deployed with watchAnyNamespace=true (or a multi-namespace list), any namespace editor can set Kafka.spec.entityOperator.userOperator.watchedNamespace (or topicOperator.watchedNamespace) to an arbitrary namespace. The cluster operator then creates a Role granting full CRUD on Secrets in the target namespace and a RoleBinding pointing to a ServiceAccount in the attacker's namespace — effectively granting cluster-admin-equivalent access via kube-system secret exfiltration. The RBAC objects created cross-namespace have their ownerReferences deliberately stripped, making the privilege grant persistent even after the Kafka CR or attacker namespace is deleted. Fixed in Strimzi 1.0.1 and 1.1.0 by adding a dedicated environment variable to explicitly enable the watched namespace feature (disabled by default).
Title strimzi-cluster-operator: Cross-namespace privilege escalation via Kafka.spec.entityOperator.watchedNamespace in Strimzi
Weaknesses CWE-250
References
Metrics threat_severity

None

cvssV3_1

{'score': 8.0, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H'}

threat_severity

Important


Projects

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cve-icon MITRE

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cve-icon Vulnrichment

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cve-icon NVD

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cve-icon Redhat

Severity : Important

Publid Date: 2026-06-17T00:00:00Z

Links: CVE-2026-55225 - Bugzilla

cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

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Weaknesses