# CVE-2026-54462: knative.dev/pkg admission webhooks allow unbounded request-body memory exhaustion


- **Severity:** Medium 6.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 27 Oct 2026
- **Updated:** 27 Oct 2026
- **Also known as:** ECHO-b911-ff02-ef59, GHSA-2hw4-c9m4-f2fj, GHSA-j8gc-gxpv-w8rg

## What is CVE-2026-54462?

CVE-2026-54462 is a medium-severity vulnerability in knative pkg, published on 27 Oct 2026. 

### Official description

Knative pkg provides common packages shared across Knative repositories. Prior to 0.0.0-20260531000007-52dbd5ece63f, the knative.dev/pkg/webhook admissionHandler in webhook/admission.go decodes an attacker-supplied AdmissionReview through json.NewDecoder(io.TeeReader(r.Body, &bodyBuffer)) under an http.HandlerFunc without an http.MaxBytesReader or equivalent body-size limit. A pod-network client can send one oversized POST to an admission webhook, causing the decoder and bodyBuffer to retain amplified copies of the request until the controller pod exhausts memory and is OOM-killed. Every downstream consumer using the shared webhook server inherits the vulnerable behavior, including Knative, Tekton, KEDA, Sigstore policy-controller, and Kpack. For consumers configured with failurePolicy=Fail, loss of the controller can interrupt admission; with failurePolicy=Ignore, the affected webhook is unavailable while other admissions continue. This issue is fixed in version 0.0.0-20260531000007-52dbd5ece63f.

Weakness: CWE-770 (Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-54462?

2 open source packages ship an affected version, including knative.dev/pkg.


| Package | Ecosystem | Affected | Fixed in |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `knative.dev/pkg` | Go | All versions | 0.0.0-20260531000007-52dbd5ece63f |
| `knative.dev/pkg` | Go | All versions | 0.0.0-20260531000007-52dbd5ece63f |

## How do I fix CVE-2026-54462?

Upgrade knative.dev/pkg to 0.0.0-20260531000007-52dbd5ece63f or later.

## Is CVE-2026-54462 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-54462 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2026-54462 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-54462 is a medium-severity vulnerability in knative pkg, published on 27 Oct 2026. 
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-54462 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected packages and fixed versions:
- knative.dev/pkg (Go): affected all versions; fixed in 0.0.0-20260531000007-52dbd5ece63f
- knative.dev/pkg (Go): affected all versions; fixed in 0.0.0-20260531000007-52dbd5ece63f

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-2026-54462/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-54462/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-54462
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-54462
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-54462

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-54462/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.