Critical [CVE-2026-71470] Search CR imageOverride/arguments/envVar flow unsanitized into pods running impersonating SA
This critical-severity Red Hat Linux advisory covers CVE-2026-71470 affecting Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes 2.
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Summary
A flaw was found in the search-v2-operator. This vulnerability allows a privileged user, specifically a Custom Resource (CR) editor, to manipulate Search CR fields such as imageOverride, arguments, and environment variables without proper validation.
By exploiting this, an attacker can mount arbitrary secrets into a search container's environment or replace the container image with an attacker-controlled one. This leads to privilege escalation and can result in a full cluster compromise due to the ServiceAccount's extensive impersonation permissions.
This is an Important vulnerability in Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes. Exploitation requires an already-privileged CR editor, which is why this does not meet the bar for Critical under the unauthenticated-RCE standard.
Red Hat severity: Important — CVSS 9.1 (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H). Weakness: CWE-913.
Red Hat does not currently list a fixing RHSA for this CVE.
Affected product named by the advisory: Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes 2.
Affected versions
No affected-version range was extracted from the source record. The vendor advisory is authoritative — check it before change work.
Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 1 hour ago·verify at source
Fixed versions
No fixed release is recorded yet. That does not prove no patch exists — confirm against the vendor advisory.
Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 1 hour ago·verify at source
Mitigation checklist
- To mitigate this issue, restrict permissions for creating and modifying Search Custom Resources (CRs) to only trusted and authorized users. Implement Kubernetes Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) policies to limit who can perform `create`, `update`, and `patch` operations on `search.search.open-cluster-management.io` resources. This reduces the attack surface by preventing unauthorized users from exploiting the unsanitized input flow.
Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 1 hour ago·verify at source
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