Kong Operator cluster-wide ingress configuration DoS via embedded KIC CA-certificate ID collision

published 2026-07-29 3 mo ago modified 2026-07-30 3 mo ago also EUVD-2026-50394

cvss: 7.1; version 4.0, CNA
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 0.2%; EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 13%
public exploits: 0; none known

Kong Operator's embedded Kong Kubernetes Ingress Controller (KIC) allows a user with namespace-scoped Secret creation privileges to cause a cluster-wide ingress configuration denial of service. The embedded KIC collects CA-certificate Secrets across all watched namespaces using a label selector alone, without ingress-class or namespace restrictions. The CA-certificate primary key is derived from a user-supplied field in the Secret. Duplicate CA-certificate IDs cause Kong Gateway to reject the entire configuration document and halting all ingress changes cluster-wide.

CISA SSVC

Exploitation: none
Automatable: no
Technical impact: partial
Assessed: 3 mo ago (2026-07-29)

Exploit prediction

0.23% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 13% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by	version	score	vector
CNA	4.0	7.1	CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
CNA	4.0	7.1	CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X

Classification

Weakness

CWE-862 Missing Authorization
CWE-400 Uncontrolled Resource Consumption

References

github.com /Kong/kong-operator/security/advisories/GHSA-h4fh-j7xg-vwcx

Sources

CVE List CVE-2026-16543
NVD CVE-2026-16543

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

Summary