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.
Advisories
Source ID Title
Github GHSA 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.

History

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 22:45:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
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
References
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 5.3, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N'}


Projects

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cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: GitHub_M

Published:

Updated: 2026-01-21T22:25:57.025Z

Reserved: 2026-01-19T18:49:20.657Z

Link: CVE-2026-23990

cve-icon Vulnrichment

No data.

cve-icon NVD

Status : Received

Published: 2026-01-21T23:15:52.930

Modified: 2026-01-21T23:15:52.930

Link: CVE-2026-23990

cve-icon Redhat

No data.

cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

No data.

Weaknesses