{"id":"CVE-2026-77524","published":"2026-10-14T17:19:11.147","lastModified":"2026-10-16T16:00:33.533","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.","cvssScore":9.9,"cvssSeverity":"CRITICAL","cvssVector":"CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H","cwes":["CWE-269","CWE-918"],"vendors":[],"products":[],"references":[{"url":"https://github.com/kedacore/keda/commit/1e21cc798dedd079e696cdb45388eddc5e18365d","tags":[]},{"url":"https://github.com/kedacore/keda/releases/tag/v2.21.0","tags":[]},{"url":"https://github.com/kedacore/keda/security/advisories/GHSA-637c-6jxx-4rwm","tags":[]}],"exploitRefs":[{"url":"https://github.com/kedacore/keda/commit/1e21cc798dedd079e696cdb45388eddc5e18365d","tags":[]},{"url":"https://github.com/kedacore/keda/releases/tag/v2.21.0","tags":[]},{"url":"https://github.com/kedacore/keda/security/advisories/GHSA-637c-6jxx-4rwm","tags":[]}],"hasPoc":true,"ai":{"summary":"A namespace administrator can escalate privileges by configuring KEDA to use a malicious Vault endpoint that accepts the operator pod's ServiceAccount token, allowing them to gain cluster-wide permissions including secret reads and workload operations.","exploitability":"Easy to exploit for a namespace administrator who can create TriggerAuthentication and ScaledObject resources, requiring only configuration of a malicious Vault address with Kubernetes authentication enabled.","blast_radius":"High impact across the entire cluster as attackers can read all secrets, modify workloads, and potentially compromise admission controllers or other sensitive operations.","remediation":"Upgrade to KEDA 2.21.0 or later to fix the vulnerability.","detection":"No reliable host or network indicator is derivable from the published description.","tags":["privilege-escalation","kubernetes","vault"],"model":"garnet-coder","analyzedAt":"2026-10-15T08:46:30.129Z"}}