CVE-2026-59341
Published:September 15, 2026
Updated:September 22, 2026
A security vulnerability exists in the Sealed Secrets controller's unauthenticated POST endpoints. By submitting a modified payload containing custom Go template logic in spec.template.data, an attacker with internal network access can abuse the handler as a decryption oracle to recover the full plaintext of any sealed secret.
The POST /v1/verify and /v1/rotate handlers call Unseal() to decrypt target secrets, then render any Go templates found in spec.template.data.* using the decrypted payload as the evaluation context (pkg/apis/sealedsecrets/v1alpha1/sealedsecret_expansion.go). Errors encountered during template execution are directly reflected in the resulting HTTP response status codes.
Missing AEAD label binding: the spec.template.data field is omitted from the AEAD authenticated-data label binding ciphertext to metadata. As a result, an attacker can copy a target's valid metadata and encryptedData verbatim, satisfying AEAD decryption and label validation, while freely replacing spec.template.data with arbitrary template logic.
Side-channel oracle: template execution errors map directly to HTTP response codes. HTTP 200 (OK) indicates template execution succeeded; HTTP 409 (Conflict) indicates template execution failed (e.g. via {{ fail "..." }}).
By injecting conditional statements such as {{ if eq (substr 0 1 .password) "S" }}ok{{ else }}{{ fail "x" }}{{ end }}, an attacker receives an HTTP 200 status when a character guess is correct and an HTTP 409 when it is incorrect. This differential response leaks one character-equality bit per request, allowing full secret extraction over successive queries.
Attack vector & prerequisites: unauthenticated; requires network access to the controller's internal service port (:8080). Although this service is not exposed to the public internet by default, it is accessible to any pod within the Kubernetes cluster or via a kubectl port-forward connection.
Affected Packages
https://github.com/bitnami/sealed-secrets.git (GITHUB):
Affected version(s) >=v0.19.0 <v0.40.0Fix Suggestion:
Update to version v0.40.0github.com/bitnami/sealed-secrets (GO):
Affected version(s) >=v0.37.0 <v0.40.0Fix Suggestion:
Update to version v0.40.0Related Resources (2)
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Contact UsCVSS v4
Base Score:
5.7
Attack Vector
NETWORK
Attack Complexity
HIGH
Attack Requirements
NONE
Privileges Required
HIGH
User Interaction
PASSIVE
Vulnerable System Confidentiality
HIGH
Vulnerable System Integrity
NONE
Vulnerable System Availability
NONE
Subsequent System Confidentiality
NONE
Subsequent System Integrity
NONE
Subsequent System Availability
NONE
CVSS v3
Base Score:
4.2
Attack Vector
NETWORK
Attack Complexity
HIGH
Privileges Required
HIGH
User Interaction
REQUIRED
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
HIGH
Integrity
NONE
Availability
NONE
Weakness Type (CWE)
Observable Discrepancy
EPSS
Base Score:
0.31