The Flux Operator is a Kubernetes CRD controller that manages the lifecycle of CNCF Flux CD and the ControlPlane enterprise distribution. Starting in version 0.36.0 and prior to version 0.40.0, a privilege escalation vulnerability exists in the Flux Operator Web UI authentication code that allows an attacker to bypass Kubernetes RBAC impersonation and execute API requests with the operator's service account privileges. In order to be vulnerable, cluster admins must configure the Flux Operator with an OIDC provider that issues tokens lacking the expected claims (e.g., `email`, `groups`), or configure custom CEL expressions that can evaluate to empty values. After OIDC token claims are processed through CEL expressions, there is no validation that the resulting `username` and `groups` values are non-empty. When both values are empty, the Kubernetes client-go library does not add impersonation headers to API requests, causing them to be executed with the flux-operator service account's credentials instead of the authenticated user's limited permissions. This can result in privilege escalation, data exposure, and/or information disclosure. Version 0.40.0 patches the issue.
Metrics
Affected Vendors & Products
Advisories
| Source | ID | Title |
|---|---|---|
Github GHSA |
GHSA-4xh5-jcj2-ch8q | Flux Operator Web UI Impersonation Bypass via Empty OIDC Claims |
Fixes
Solution
No solution given by the vendor.
Workaround
No workaround given by the vendor.
References
History
Wed, 21 Jan 2026 22:45:00 +0000
| Type | Values Removed | Values Added |
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| Description | The Flux Operator is a Kubernetes CRD controller that manages the lifecycle of CNCF Flux CD and the ControlPlane enterprise distribution. Starting in version 0.36.0 and prior to version 0.40.0, a privilege escalation vulnerability exists in the Flux Operator Web UI authentication code that allows an attacker to bypass Kubernetes RBAC impersonation and execute API requests with the operator's service account privileges. In order to be vulnerable, cluster admins must configure the Flux Operator with an OIDC provider that issues tokens lacking the expected claims (e.g., `email`, `groups`), or configure custom CEL expressions that can evaluate to empty values. After OIDC token claims are processed through CEL expressions, there is no validation that the resulting `username` and `groups` values are non-empty. When both values are empty, the Kubernetes client-go library does not add impersonation headers to API requests, causing them to be executed with the flux-operator service account's credentials instead of the authenticated user's limited permissions. This can result in privilege escalation, data exposure, and/or information disclosure. Version 0.40.0 patches the issue. | |
| Title | Flux Operator Web UI Impersonation Bypass via Empty OIDC Claims | |
| Weaknesses | CWE-269 CWE-862 |
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| References |
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| Metrics |
cvssV3_1
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Projects
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Status: PUBLISHED
Assigner: GitHub_M
Published:
Updated: 2026-01-21T22:25:57.025Z
Reserved: 2026-01-19T18:49:20.657Z
Link: CVE-2026-23990
No data.
Status : Received
Published: 2026-01-21T23:15:52.930
Modified: 2026-01-21T23:15:52.930
Link: CVE-2026-23990
No data.
OpenCVE Enrichment
No data.
Github GHSA