CVE-2025-62159 External Secrets Operator's BeyondTrust Provider has Insecure Secret Retrieval
Attackers can access secrets across namespaces without proper validation, exposing sensitive credentials in Kubernetes environments using the BeyondTrust provider.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2025-62159?
CVE-2025-62159 is a high-severity missing authorization vulnerability in external-secrets, published on 10 Oct 2025. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Official description
External Secrets Operator reads information from a third-party service and automatically injects the values as Kubernetes Secrets. A vulnerability was discovered in the BeyondTrust provider implementation for External Secrets Operator versions 0.10.1 through 0.19.2. The provider previously retrieved Kubernetes secrets directly, without validating the namespace context or the type of secret store. This allowed unauthorized cross-namespace secret access, violating security boundaries and potentially exposing sensitive credentials. In version 0.20.0, the provider code was updated to use the `resolvers.SecretKeyRef` utility, which enforces namespace validation and only allows cross-namespace access for `ClusterSecretStore` types. This ensures secrets are only retrieved from the correct namespace, mitigating the risk of unauthorized access. All users should upgrade to the latest version containing this fix. As a workaround, use a policy engine such as Kyverno or OPA to prevent using BeyondTrust provider and/or validate the `(Cluster)SecretStore` and ensure the namespace may only be set when using a `ClusterSecretStore`.
Weakness: CWE-284
Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-62159?
How do I fix CVE-2025-62159?
Upgrade to a fixed version.
Upgrade, and check permissions on every request on the server, not only in the interface. More about Missing authorization.
Is CVE-2025-62159 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-62159 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as GHSA-vf79-2pjx-phpp, MINI-pwqf-v92f-29qc.