KEDA: Privilege escalation from namespace admin to cluster admin via KEDA TriggerAuthentication (CVE-2026-77524)
Published Last modified Sources: CVE.org, OSV, Msrc Update Guide, Hersteller
What is affected, what to do
KEDA is a Kubernetes-based Event Driven Autoscaling component. In version 2.20.2 and earlier, a namespace administrator who can create TriggerAuthentication and ScaledObject resources can set hashiCorpVault.address to a tenant-controlled endpoint and select Kubernetes authentication without an explicit credential.
Update Keda to version 2.21.0.
- Affected
- Keda
lt *..2.21.0
- Keda
- Fixed in
- Keda
2.21.0
- Keda
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Metrics
9.9
Priority
XIEM Effective CVSS: highest available CVSS rating from NVD and vendor data.
Source: Vendor (CNA), CVSS v3
9.9
CVSS v3
Severity Critical on the scale from 0 to 10.
Source: CVE.org, OSV, Msrc Update Guide, Hersteller
0.6 %
EPSS score
Low — model estimates < 1% exploitation likelihood.
Source: FIRST EPSS, percentile 49.5
Show all metrics
- Severity
- Critical
Priority score
The priority score is a consolidated metric that condenses several individual signals into a single, action-guiding ranking: technical severity (CVSS), exploitation likelihood (EPSS), known-exploited status (KEV) and the context of the affected asset. The aim is to answer the only truly important question in vulnerability management: what first?
Read in glossary- 99.03
Exploit maturity
An exploit is code or a technique that specifically uses a concrete vulnerability to force unintended behaviour — such as executing code or escalating privileges. It is the tool that turns a theoretical flaw into a practical attack.
Read in glossary- no public PoC known
XIEM Effective CVSS
XIEM® is the tiered managed-security operating model from NEOSEC and a registered trademark of NEOSEC GmbH. It extends classic SIEM — the central collection, normalisation and correlation of security-relevant events — with endpoint forensics, network visibility and deception technology, and consolidates them into three building tiers: Sentry, Orchestrate and Command.
Read in glossary- 9.9
CVSS v3
CVSS is the globally established, open standard for assessing the technical severity of a vulnerability on a scale from 0 to 10. It describes how easily a flaw can be exploited and what damage it can cause — but not how likely its actual exploitation is. CVSS and the complementary EPSS deliberately answer different questions.
Read in glossary- 9.9
EPSS score
The EPSS score is the absolute model output for an individual vulnerability: the estimated probability of real-world exploitation within the next 30 days, expressed as a value between 0 and 1 (i.e. 0 % to 100 %). A score of 0.42 means „the model estimates a 42 % chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days“.
Read in glossary- 0.6 %
- Low — model estimates < 1% exploitation likelihood.
EPSS percentile
The EPSS percentile is the relative position of a vulnerability within all EPSS-scored CVEs, expressed as a value between 0 and 1. A percentile of 0.90 means „this CVE has a higher EPSS score than 90 % of all other scored CVEs“. Unlike the EPSS score, it is not a probability — but a positioning within a ranking.
Read in glossary- 49.5
- High — this CVE ranks above the median of all CVEs scored today (rank ≥ 36%).
KEV status
The KEV catalogue is a list maintained by the US authority CISA of vulnerabilities for which active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. It answers not the question „how severe?“ but „is it already being attacked?“ — thereby sharply prioritising patching.
Read in glossary- —
- Published
CWE
CWE is a catalogue of typical weakness types in software and hardware — such as flawed input validation, unsafe memory handling or poor authentication. Where a CVE names a concrete vulnerability in a concrete product, a CWE describes the underlying class of defect.
Read in glossary- CWE-269, CWE-918
Classification under NIS2 and CRA
Rule-based classification from exploitation status and severity. It does not replace a case-by-case assessment.
NIS2
NIS2 is EU Directive (EU) 2022/2555 to raise the level of cybersecurity across the Union. It substantially broadens obligations compared with the first NIS directive: more sectors, mandatory risk management, staged reporting duties and personal accountability of senior management.
Read in glossary- High technical severity: assess and remediate the vulnerability in vulnerability handling under Art. 21(2)(e) NIS2 and document the decision.
CRA
The CRA is EU Regulation (EU) 2024/2847 setting horizontal cybersecurity requirements for „products with digital elements“ — from industrial controllers and software to connected consumer devices. For the first time manufacturers must ensure security across the entire product lifecycle, handle vulnerabilities and provide security updates.
Read in glossary- From 11.12.2027, Annex I Part II CRA requires manufacturers of affected products with digital elements to handle vulnerabilities without delay and provide security updates.
ISO/IEC 27001
ISO/IEC 27001 is the internationally leading standard for an information security management system (ISMS). It describes a risk-based, process-oriented framework to systematically plan, implement, review and improve information security.
Read in glossary- Control A.8.8, management of technical vulnerabilities: assess relevance to your systems, plan remediation and keep evidence.
Description
KEDA is a Kubernetes-based Event Driven Autoscaling component. In version 2.20.2 and earlier, a namespace administrator who can create TriggerAuthentication and ScaledObject resources can set hashiCorpVault.address to a tenant-controlled endpoint and select Kubernetes authentication without an explicit credential. KEDA then uses the operator pod's projected ServiceAccount token and sends it to that endpoint as a Vault login credential. The JWT-shape filter from the prior CVE-2025-68476 remediation accepts the operator token because its subject is a Kubernetes ServiceAccount, so the attacker can obtain the operator's cluster-wide permissions, including broad Secret reads and workload or admission-related operations. This vulnerability is fixed in 2.21.0.
Source: NVD (NIST), OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities), Microsoft Security Update Guide, cvelistv5, GitHub Security Advisories
Affected products
The following versions are affected. Older releases of the same product line are also vulnerable unless stated otherwise.
| Vendor | Product | Affected versions | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|---|
| kedacore | keda |
|
|
| go | github.com/kedacore/keda |
|
|
| go | github.com/kedacore/keda/v2 |
|
|
Weakness classes (CWE)
CWE-269Improper Privilege Management
Class
The product does not properly assign, modify, track, or check privileges for an actor, creating an unintended sphere of control for that actor.
Entry at MITRE CWE-269CWE-918Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF)
Base
The web server receives a URL or similar request from an upstream component and retrieves the contents of this URL, but it does not sufficiently ensure that the request is being sent to the expected destination.
Entry at MITRE CWE-918
References & sources
- github.comkedacore/keda/security/advisories/GHSA-637c-6jxx-4rwmweb, x_refsource_CONFIRM, advisory
- NVD (NIST)vuln/detail/CVE-2026-77524advisory
- github.comkedacore/keda/commit/1e21cc798dedd079e696cdb45388eddc5e18365dweb, x_refsource_MISC, fix
- github.comkedacore/kedapackage
- github.comkedacore/keda/releases/tag/v2.21.0web, x_refsource_MISC
Reanalysis & status changes
Chronological NVD audit events for this CVE — reanalyses, CVSS updates, CPE diffs.
CVE Modified134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0
- SSVC: after {"id":"CVE-2026-77524","role":"CISA Coordinator","options":[{"exploitation":"poc"},{"automatable":"no"},{"technicalIm…
New CVE Receivedsecurity-advisories@github.com
- Description: after KEDA is a Kubernetes-based Event Driven Autoscaling component. In version 2.20.2 and earlier, a namespace administrator who can create TriggerAuthentication and ScaledObject resources can set hashiCorpVault.address to a tenant-controlled endpoint and select Kubernetes authentication without an explicit credential. KEDA then uses the operator pod's projected ServiceAccount token and sends it to that endpoint as a Vault login credential. The JWT-shape filter from the prior CVE-2025-68476 remediation accepts the operator token because its subject is a Kubernetes ServiceAccount, so the attacker can obtain the operator's cluster-wide permissions, including broad Secret reads and workload or admission-related operations. This vulnerability is fixed in 2.21.0.
- CVSS V3.1: after AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
- CWE: after CWE-918
- CWE: after CWE-269