External Secrets

External Secrets Operator reads information from a third-party service and automatically injects the values as Kubernetes Secrets. Prior to 2.4.1, a user who only has permission to create ExternalSecret resources can cause the operator to create a Secret that Kubernetes will automatically populate with a long-lived token for the specified service account. This effectively allows the user to impersonate any service account in the namespace without needing direct create permissions on TokenRequest or Secrets of that type. This vulnerability is fixed in 2.4.1.

Published: 2026-05-11T18:58:44.069Z
Updated: 2026-05-12T13:26:21.683Z

External Secrets Operator reads information from a third-party service and automatically injects the values as Kubernetes Secrets. Prior to 2.4.0, Namespaced SecretStore resources that used CAProvider with type ConfigMap could resolve CA material from another namespace when caProvider.namespace was set. This bypassed the namespace boundary enforced for SecretStore-backed references in providers that rely on the shared runtime CA resolver. This vulnerability is fixed in 2.4.0.

Published: 2026-05-11T18:56:34.097Z
Updated: 2026-05-12T16:25:13.165Z

External Secrets Operator reads information from a third-party service and automatically injects the values as Kubernetes Secrets. Versions 2.2.0 and below contain a vulnerability in runtime/template/v2/template.go where the v2 template engine removes env and expandenv from Sprig's TxtFuncMap() but leaves the getHostByName function accessible to user-controlled templates. Since ESO executes templates within the controller process, an attacker who can create or update templated ExternalSecret resources can invoke controller-side DNS lookups using secret-derived values. This creates a DNS exfiltration primitive, allowing fetched secret material to be leaked via DNS queries without requiring direct outbound network access from the attacker's workload. The impact is a confidentiality issue, particularly in environments where untrusted or lower-trust users can author templated ExternalSecret resources and the controller has DNS resolution capability. This issue has been fixed in version 2.3.0.

Published: 2026-04-14T01:48:41.166Z
Updated: 2026-04-14T16:27:55.720Z

External Secrets Operator reads information from a third-party service and automatically injects the values as Kubernetes Secrets. Starting in version 0.20.2 and prior to version 1.2.0, the `getSecretKey` template function, while introduced for senhasegura Devops Secrets Management (DSM) provider, has the ability to fetch secrets cross-namespaces with the roleBinding of the external-secrets controller, bypassing our security mechanisms. This function was completely removed in version 1.2.0, as everything done with that templating function can be done in a different way while respecting External Secrets Operator's safeguards As a workaround, use a policy engine such as Kubernetes, Kyverno, Kubewarden, or OPA to prevent the usage of `getSecretKey` in any ExternalSecret resource.

Published: 2026-01-21T21:22:05.249Z
Updated: 2026-07-15T01:19:08.563Z

External Secrets Operator reads information from a third-party service and automatically injects the values as Kubernetes Secrets. A vulnerability was discovered in the BeyondTrust provider implementation for External Secrets Operator versions 0.10.1 through 0.19.2. The provider previously retrieved Kubernetes secrets directly, without validating the namespace context or the type of secret store. This allowed unauthorized cross-namespace secret access, violating security boundaries and potentially exposing sensitive credentials. In version 0.20.0, the provider code was updated to use the `resolvers.SecretKeyRef` utility, which enforces namespace validation and only allows cross-namespace access for `ClusterSecretStore` types. This ensures secrets are only retrieved from the correct namespace, mitigating the risk of unauthorized access. All users should upgrade to the latest version containing this fix. As a workaround, use a policy engine such as Kyverno or OPA to prevent using BeyondTrust provider and/or validate the `(Cluster)SecretStore` and ensure the namespace may only be set when using a `ClusterSecretStore`.

Published: 2025-10-10T22:23:19.071Z
Updated: 2025-10-14T15:01:12.569Z