CVE-2023-40029: Cluster secret might leak in cluster details page in Argo CD

Severity: critical (CVSS 9.6 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 1.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: yes
Published: 2023-09-07 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-200

Description

Argo CD is a declarative continuous deployment for Kubernetes. Argo CD Cluster secrets might be managed declaratively using Argo CD / kubectl apply. As a result, the full secret body is stored in`kubectl.kubernetes.io/last-applied-configuration` annotation. pull request #7139 introduced the ability to manage cluster labels and annotations. Since clusters are stored as secrets it also exposes the `kubectl.kubernetes.io/last-applied-configuration` annotation which includes full secret body. In order to view the cluster annotations via the Argo CD API, the user must have `clusters, get` RBAC access. **Note:** In many cases, cluster secrets do not contain any actually-secret information. But sometimes, as in bearer-token auth, the contents might be very sensitive. The bug has been patched in versions 2.8.3, 2.7.14, and 2.6.15. Users are advised to upgrade. Users unable to upgrade should update/deploy cluster secret with `server-side-apply` flag which does not use or rely on `kubectl.kubernetes.io/last-applied-configuration` annotation. Note: annotation for existing secrets will require manual removal.

Affected products

argoproj argo-cd: from 2.2.0 before 2.6.15; from 2.7.0 before 2.7.14; from 2.8.0 before 2.8.3 — fixed in 2.6.15, 2.7.14, 2.8.3

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: argoproj argo-cd 2.6.15, 2.7.14, 2.8.3. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

Get alerted when CVE-2023-40029 or the next vulnerability affects your stack