CVE-2023-26484 HIGH

CVE-2023-26484: On a compromised KubeVirt node, the virt-handler service account can be used to modify all node specs

Vendor Kubevirt
Product kubevirt
Weakness CWE-863 · Incorrect authorization
Published March 15, 2023
Last update February 25, 2025

CVSS base score

8.2/10
Attack vector Network
Attack complexity High
Privileges required Low
User interaction None
Confidentiality High
Integrity High

CVSS vector

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:N

What the vulnerability does

01Description

KubeVirt is a virtual machine management add-on for Kubernetes. In versions 0.59.0 and prior, if a malicious user has taken over a Kubernetes node where virt-handler (the KubeVirt node-daemon) is running, the virt-handler service account can be used to modify all node specs. This can be misused to lure-in system-level-privileged components which can, for instance, read all secrets on the cluster, or can exec into pods on other nodes. This way, a compromised node can be used to elevate privileges beyond the node until potentially having full privileged access to the whole cluster. The simplest way to exploit this, once a user could compromise a specific node, is to set with the virt-handler service account all other nodes to unschedulable and simply wait until system-critical components with high privileges appear on its node. No patches are available as of time of publication. As a workaround, gatekeeper users can add a webhook which will block the `virt-handler` service account to modify the spec of a node.

Key dates

02Disclosure timeline

March 15, 2023 CVE published
February 25, 2025 Record updated