CVE-2026-72640: elastic eck operator Confused Deputy

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2026-72640 is a medium (CVSS 6.5) Confused Deputy vulnerability in elastic eck operator. EPSS estimates a 0.38% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 30% of scored vulnerabilities.

Timeline

1. 13-08-2026
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 13-08-2026
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

The Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes (ECK) operator reads a list of secret references from an annotation on secrets it manages, and it accepts the namespace recorded in each reference without validating that the reference is authorized for the resource being reconciled. A user whose Kubernetes permissions are limited to their own namespace can write that annotation, trigger a reconcile, and cause the operator to use its cluster-wide secret permissions to copy the contents of a secret from any other namespace into a secret the user can read.

• CWE-441Unintended Proxy or Intermediary ('Confused Deputy')The product receives a request, message, or directive from an upstream component, but the product does not sufficiently preserve the original source of the request before forwarding the request to an external actor that is outside of the product's control sphere. This causes the product to appear to be the source of the request, leading it to act as a proxy or other intermediary between the upstream component and the external actor.