# CVE-2026-15140: Privilege escalation in Portworx Operator

> Limited namespace users can gain elevated cluster privileges during initial Portworx Operator provisioning on OpenShift.

- **Severity:** High 7.7 (`CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 9 Sep 2026
- **Updated:** 9 Sep 2026
- **Also known as:** GHSA-q9g8-x2gv-frw5

## What is CVE-2026-15140?

CVE-2026-15140 is a high-severity vulnerability in Everpure Portworx Operator, published on 9 Sep 2026. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

A privilege-escalation issue in the Portworx Operator when deployed on Red Hat OpenShift (OCP). Only under specific conditions during the initial provisioning of a Portworx storage cluster, a user holding only limited, namespace-scoped permissions could cause the operator to grant broader access than intended, potentially resulting in elevated privileges within the Kubernetes cluster.

Weakness: CWE-266 (Incorrect Privilege Assignment)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-15140?


## How do I fix CVE-2026-15140?

No fix has been published for CVE-2026-15140 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2026-15140 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-15140 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2026-15140 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-15140 is a high-severity vulnerability in Everpure Portworx Operator, published on 9 Sep 2026. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-15140 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Everpure Portworx Operator. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-15140/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-15140/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-15140
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-15140
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-15140

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-15140/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.