A security vulnerability exists in the Sealed Secrets controller's unauthenticated POST endpoints. By submitting a modified payload containing custom Go template logic in spec.template.data, an attacker with internal network access can abuse the handler as a decryption oracle to recover the full plaintext of any sealed secret.



The POST /v1/verify and /v1/rotate handlers call Unseal() to decrypt target secrets, then render any Go templates found in spec.template.data.* using the decrypted payload as the evaluation context (pkg/apis/sealedsecrets/v1alpha1/sealedsecret_expansion.go). Errors encountered during template execution are directly reflected in the resulting HTTP response status codes.



Missing AEAD label binding: the spec.template.data field is omitted from the AEAD authenticated-data label binding ciphertext to metadata. As a result, an attacker can copy a target's valid metadata and encryptedData verbatim, satisfying AEAD decryption and label validation, while freely replacing spec.template.data with arbitrary template logic.



Side-channel oracle: template execution errors map directly to HTTP response codes. HTTP 200 (OK) indicates template execution succeeded; HTTP 409 (Conflict) indicates template execution failed (e.g. via {{ fail "..." }}).



By injecting conditional statements such as {{ if eq (substr 0 1 .password) "S" }}ok{{ else }}{{ fail "x" }}{{ end }}, an attacker receives an HTTP 200 status when a character guess is correct and an HTTP 409 when it is incorrect. This differential response leaks one character-equality bit per request, allowing full secret extraction over successive queries.



Attack vector & prerequisites: unauthenticated; requires network access to the controller's internal service port (:8080). Although this service is not exposed to the public internet by default, it is accessible to any pod within the Kubernetes cluster or via a kubectl port-forward connection.

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History

Tue, 15 Sep 2026 10:45:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
First Time appeared Bitnami
Bitnami sealed-secrets
Vendors & Products Bitnami
Bitnami sealed-secrets

Tue, 15 Sep 2026 09:30:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description A security vulnerability exists in the Sealed Secrets controller's unauthenticated POST endpoints. By submitting a modified payload containing custom Go template logic in spec.template.data, an attacker with internal network access can abuse the handler as a decryption oracle to recover the full plaintext of any sealed secret. The POST /v1/verify and /v1/rotate handlers call Unseal() to decrypt target secrets, then render any Go templates found in spec.template.data.* using the decrypted payload as the evaluation context (pkg/apis/sealedsecrets/v1alpha1/sealedsecret_expansion.go). Errors encountered during template execution are directly reflected in the resulting HTTP response status codes. Missing AEAD label binding: the spec.template.data field is omitted from the AEAD authenticated-data label binding ciphertext to metadata. As a result, an attacker can copy a target's valid metadata and encryptedData verbatim, satisfying AEAD decryption and label validation, while freely replacing spec.template.data with arbitrary template logic. Side-channel oracle: template execution errors map directly to HTTP response codes. HTTP 200 (OK) indicates template execution succeeded; HTTP 409 (Conflict) indicates template execution failed (e.g. via {{ fail "..." }}). By injecting conditional statements such as {{ if eq (substr 0 1 .password) "S" }}ok{{ else }}{{ fail "x" }}{{ end }}, an attacker receives an HTTP 200 status when a character guess is correct and an HTTP 409 when it is incorrect. This differential response leaks one character-equality bit per request, allowing full secret extraction over successive queries. Attack vector & prerequisites: unauthenticated; requires network access to the controller's internal service port (:8080). Although this service is not exposed to the public internet by default, it is accessible to any pod within the Kubernetes cluster or via a kubectl port-forward connection.
Title Sealed Secrets: decryption oracle via Go template injection in unauthenticated controller endpoints
References
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 4.2, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:H/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N'}


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cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: vmware

Published:

Updated: 2026-09-15T09:16:59.460Z

Reserved: 2026-07-04T18:14:34.672Z

Link: CVE-2026-59341

cve-icon Vulnrichment

No data.

cve-icon NVD

Status : Received

Published: 2026-09-15T10:17:05.673

Modified: 2026-09-15T10:17:05.673

Link: CVE-2026-59341

cve-icon Redhat

No data.

cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

Updated: 2026-09-15T10:30:12Z

Weaknesses

No weakness.