CVE-2026-26287 External Secrets Operator: label enforcement bypass in webhook generator enables secret exfiltration
A bug in External Secrets Operator bypasses label enforcement, allowing attackers to exfiltrate secrets that should have been restricted.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Any signed-in user
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2026-26287?
CVE-2026-26287 is a high-severity vulnerability in external-secrets, published on 6 Oct 2026. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, 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. Starting in version 0.10.0 and prior to version 1.3.2, a bug in the `webhook` generator initialization order incorrectly cleared the label-enforcement flag (`EnforceLabels`) after it was set, resulting in the provider-side check for `external-secrets.io/type=webhook` being skipped (and the operation to succeed while it should have failed with `secret does not contain needed label 'external-secrets.io/type: webhook'. Update secret label to use it with webhook`. Version 1.3.2 contains a patch.
Weakness: CWE-696
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-26287?
3 open source packages ship an affected version, including github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets.
| Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets Go | From 0.10.0 | 1.3.2 |
github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets Go | From 0.10.0 | 1.3.2 |
github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets Go | From 0.10.0 | 1.3.2 |
How do I fix CVE-2026-26287?
Upgrade github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets to 1.3.2 or later.
Is CVE-2026-26287 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-26287 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as GHSA-q7hv-xx6h-q2x8, GO-2026-6667, MINI-fv26-wcpg-f8wr.