KEDA: Privilege escalation from namespace admin to cluster admin via KEDA TriggerAuthentication

{
  "id": "62acf3f803b16c46f7f5c16026ad66a89d0d5c42e5bd407321bd2be3a756f93a",
  "url": "https://osv.dev/vulnerability/GHSA-637c-6jxx-4rwm",
  "method": "structured",
  "payload": {
    "kind": "advisory",
    "title": "KEDA: Privilege escalation from namespace admin to cluster admin via KEDA TriggerAuthentication",
    "summary": "## Summary A namespace admin who creates a `TriggerAuthentication` and a `ScaledObject` in their own namespace can make the KEDA operator send its own ServiceAccount token to a tenant-controlled URL. That token holds `[\"*\"]/[\"*\"] get` cluster-wide, so it reads every Secret in every namespace, plus `batch/jobs` and `horizontalpodautoscalers` create/delete cluster-wide, `*/scale` update on any workload, `validatingwebhookconfigurations` update (rewrite or disable cluster admission), and `apiservices` update (hijack aggregated API routing). This is effectively privilege escalation from namespace admin to cluster admin in real environments: a cluster-wide Secret read alone is enough to find a token for a more privileged ServiceAccount, and the cluster-wide `batch/jobs` create lets the attacker run a workload in any namespace whose Pod Security Admission level permits it (or that is PSA-exempt, such as `kube-system` , `kyverno`) to reach the node filesystem and a control-plane kubeconfig. This is an incomplete fix of CVE-2025-68476: its content filter only requires the loaded file to be a JWT whose subject begins with `system:serviceaccount:`, which the operator's own projected token satisfies by construction. The destination field `hashiCorpVault.address` is unvalidated. Finder credits: Artem Cherezov @cherez0ff, with Claude Opus 4.8 ## Verified live kind v1.31.2, kedacore/keda v2.20.0 (latest at the time of audit, ) installed from the unmodified release manifest `keda-2.20.0.yam",
    "evidence": "osv:GHSA-637c-6jxx-4rwm",
    "products": [
      {
        "name": {
          "value": "github.com/kedacore/keda",
          "evidence": "/affected/0/package/name"
        },
        "prerequisites": [],
        "fixed_versions": [],
        "affected_versions": []
      },
      {
        "name": {
          "value": "github.com/kedacore/keda/v2",
          "evidence": "/affected/1/package/name"
        },
        "prerequisites": [],
        "fixed_versions": [
          {
            "value": "2.21.0",
            "evidence": "/affected/1/ranges"
          }
        ],
        "affected_versions": []
      }
    ],
    "severity": "critical",
    "structured": {
      "id": "GHSA-637c-6jxx-4rwm",
      "aliases": [
        "CVE-2026-77524",
        "GHSA-637c-6jxx-4rwm",
        "GO-2026-6776"
      ],
      "metrics": [
        {
          "type": "CVSS_V3",
          "score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H"
        }
      ],
      "affected": [
        {
          "ranges": [
            {
              "type": "SEMVER",
              "events": [
                {
                  "introduced": "0"
                },
                {
                  "last_affected": "1.5.0"
                }
              ]
            }
          ],
          "package": {
            "name": "github.com/kedacore/keda",
            "purl": "pkg:golang/github.com/kedacore/keda",
            "ecosystem": "Go"
          },
          "database_specific": {
            "source": "https://github.com/github/advisory-database/blob/main/advisories/github-reviewed/2026/10/GHSA-637c-6jxx-4rwm/GHSA-637c-6jxx-4rwm.json"
          }
        },
        {
          "ranges": [
            {
              "type": "SEMVER",
              "events": [
                {
                  "introduced": "0"
                },
                {
                  "fixed": "2.21.0"
                }
              ]
            }
          ],
          "package": {
            "name": "github.com/kedacore/keda/v2",
            "purl": "pkg:golang/github.com/kedacore/keda/v2",
            "ecosystem": "Go"
          },
          "database_specific": {
            "source": "https://github.com/github/advisory-database/blob/main/advisories/github-reviewed/2026/10/GHSA-637c-6jxx-4rwm/GHSA-637c-6jxx-4rwm.json"
          }
        }
      ],
      "modified": "2026-10-19T21:40:44.489356801Z",
      "provider": "osv",
      "references": [
        "https://github.com/kedacore/keda/security/advisories/GHSA-637c-6jxx-4rwm",
        "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-77524",
        "https://github.com/kedacore/keda/commit/1e21cc798dedd079e696cdb45388eddc5e18365d",
        "https://github.com/kedacore/keda",
        "https://github.com/kedacore/keda/releases/tag/v2.21.0"
      ],
      "provider_metadata": {
        "cwe_ids": [
          "CWE-269",
          "CWE-918"
        ],
        "severity": "CRITICAL",
        "github_reviewed": true,
        "nvd_published_at": "2026-10-14T17:19:11Z",
        "github_reviewed_at": "2026-10-15T20:19:42Z"
      }
    },
    "related_cves": [
      {
        "value": "CVE-2026-77524",
        "evidence": "/aliases"
      }
    ],
    "security_relevant": true,
    "severity_evidence": "/database_specific/severity"
  },
  "source_id": "core-osv",
  "document_id": 376732,
  "published_at": "2026-10-15T20:19:42+00:00"
}