# CVE-2026-76654: Subpath symlinking on Windows nodes permits NTLM coercion


- **Severity:** Medium 5.8 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:N/A:N`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Fix available:** No
- **Published:** 26 Oct 2026
- **Updated:** 26 Oct 2026
- **Also known as:** AZL-111137, GHSA-fvcc-576m-9wv4

## What is CVE-2026-76654?

CVE-2026-76654 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Kubernetes, published on 26 Oct 2026. 

### Official description

An NTLM coercion vulnerability exists on Windows nodes when the subPath supplied in a pod's volumeMounts is set to a symbolic link that points to an attacker-controlled network share. When a kubelet resolves symlinks, it does not reject a target that resolves to a UNC path. As a result, the kubelet will transparently attempt to authenticate to the share using NTLM. This allows an attacker to obtain the NetNTLMv2 hash of the account under which the kubelet is running. An attacker could then attempt to crack the hash to retrieve the corresponding password or relay it to impersonate the node, if the node is domain-joined.

Weakness: CWE-59 (Improper Link Resolution Before File Access)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-76654?


## How do I fix CVE-2026-76654?

No fix has been published for CVE-2026-76654 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.

## Is CVE-2026-76654 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-76654 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2026-76654 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-76654 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Kubernetes, published on 26 Oct 2026. 
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-76654 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Kubernetes. 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-2026-76654/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-76654/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-76654
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-76654
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-76654

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From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-76654/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.