CVE-2023-26484
On a compromised KubeVirt node, the virt-handler service account can be used to modify all node specs
- State
- Published
- Severity
- 8.2 High
- Published
- Mar 15, 2023
- Updated
- Feb 25, 2025
- Reserved
- Feb 23, 2023
Description
KubeVirt is a virtual machine management add-on for Kubernetes. In versions 0.59.0 and prior, if a malicious user has taken over a Kubernetes node where virt-handler (the KubeVirt node-daemon) is running, the virt-handler service account can be used to modify all node specs. This can be misused to lure-in system-level-privileged components which can, for instance, read all secrets on the cluster, or can exec into pods on other nodes. This way, a compromised node can be used to elevate privileges beyond the node until potentially having full privileged access to the whole cluster. The simplest way to exploit this, once a user could compromise a specific node, is to set with the virt-handler service account all other nodes to unschedulable and simply wait until system-critical components with high privileges appear on its node. No patches are available as of time of publication. As a workaround, gatekeeper users can add a webhook which will block the `virt-handler` service account to modify the spec of a node.
Scores
| CVSS | Score | Vector | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3.1 | 8.2 High | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:N | GitHub_M |
Weaknesses
- CWE-863 Incorrect Authorization
Affected Products
| Product | Versions |
|---|---|
kubevirtkubevirt |
|
References
Every record here comes from the CVE Program’s CVE List. © 1999–2026 The MITRE Corporation. CVE is a registered trademark of The MITRE Corporation. The records are reproduced under the CVE Program terms of use.