CVE-2025-62159: external-secrets Improper Access Control

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2025-62159 is a high (CVSS 8.7) Improper Access Control vulnerability in external-secrets. EPSS estimates a 0.30% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 22% of scored vulnerabilities.

Timeline

1. 10-10-2025
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 14-10-2025
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

External Secrets Operator reads information from a third-party service and automatically injects the values as Kubernetes Secrets. A vulnerability was discovered in the BeyondTrust provider implementation for External Secrets Operator versions 0.10.1 through 0.19.2. The provider previously retrieved Kubernetes secrets directly, without validating the namespace context or the type of secret store. This allowed unauthorized cross-namespace secret access, violating security boundaries and potentially exposing sensitive credentials. In version 0.20.0, the provider code was updated to use the `resolvers.SecretKeyRef` utility, which enforces namespace validation and only allows cross-namespace access for `ClusterSecretStore` types. This ensures secrets are only retrieved from the correct namespace, mitigating the risk of unauthorized access. All users should upgrade to the latest version containing this fix. As a workaround, use a policy engine such as Kyverno or OPA to prevent using BeyondTrust provider and/or validate the `(Cluster)SecretStore` and ensure the namespace may only be set when using a `ClusterSecretStore`.

• CWE-284Improper Access ControlThe product does not restrict or incorrectly restricts access to a resource from an unauthorized actor.