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).
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Advisories
| Source | ID | Title |
|---|---|---|
 Github GHSA |
GHSA-mw9r-p8xp-wx96 | Strimzi: Cross-namespace privilege escalation via `Kafka.spec.entityOperator` |
Fixes
Solution
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Workaround
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References
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 | |
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| Metrics |
threat_severity
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cvssV3_1
|
Projects
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OpenCVE Enrichment
Updated: 2026-06-18T19:45:16Z
Weaknesses