CVE-2026-42809 CRITICAL

CVE-2026-42809: Apache Polaris: staged table creation could vend storage credentials for unvalidated locations

Vendor Apache Software Foundation
Product Apache Polaris
Weakness CWE-862 · Missing authorization
Published May 4, 2026
Last update May 4, 2026

CVSS base score

9.4/10
Attack vector Network
Attack complexity Low
Privileges required Low
User interaction None
Confidentiality
Integrity

CVSS vector

CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:H/SI:H/SA:H

What the vulnerability does

Description

Apache Polaris can issue broad temporary ("vended") storage credentials during staged table creation before the effective table location has been validated or durably reserved. Those temporary credentials are meant to limit the scope of accessible table data and metadata, but this scope limitation becomes attacker- directed because the attacker can choose a reachable target location. In the confirmed variant, if the caller supplies a custom `location` during stage create and requests credential vending, Apache Polaris uses that location to construct delegated storage credentials immediately. The stage-create path itself neither runs the normal location validation nor the overlap checks before those credentials are issued. Closely related to that, the staged-create flow also accepts `write.data.path` / `write.metadata.path` in the request properties and feeds those location overrides into the same effective table location set used for credential vending. Those fields are secondary to the main custom-`location` exploit, but they are still attacker-influenced location inputs that should be validated before any credentials are issued.

Key dates

Disclosure timeline

May 4, 2026 CVE published
May 4, 2026 Record updated