CVE-2026-105312: Console-operator: streams for apache kafka console: tenant-controlled container image on clusterrole-bound pod enables namespace-to-cluster privilege escalation

Severity: critical (CVSS 9.9 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.3% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2026-10-20 · updated 2026-10-20
Weakness: CWE-269

Description

A Kubernetes tenant with create permission on Console custom resources can set spec.containers.api.spec.image to an arbitrary container image. The operator deploys this image into a pod whose ServiceAccount is bound via ClusterRoleBinding to a ClusterRole granting cluster-wide get/list/watch on all Strimzi CRDs (including KafkaUsers), patch on Kafkas/KafkaRebalances, and cluster-monitoring-view. The attacker's code reads the projected SA token and gains cross-tenant Strimzi control-plane read+write access.

Affected products

Red Hat streams for Apache Kafka 2: all versions
Red Hat streams for Apache Kafka 3: all versions
Red Hat StreamsHub Console for Apache Kafka®: from 0.2.0 before 0.12.10; from 0.13.0 before 0.14.2 — fixed in 0.12.10, 0.14.2

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Red Hat StreamsHub Console for Apache Kafka® 0.12.10, 0.14.2. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

Get alerted when CVE-2026-105312 or the next vulnerability affects your stack