Security readout for executives and security teams
Plain-English summary
Kyverno can be crashed or made unavailable by someone who is already allowed to create policies. A crafted policy can make Kyverno consume unbounded memory, disrupting admission control or policy enforcement in Kubernetes environments. The issue is patched in Kyverno 1.16.3 and 1.15.3.
Executive priority
Prioritize remediation for production Kubernetes clusters using Kyverno, especially where policy creation is delegated. This is a high-availability risk rather than a data theft issue, but disruption to admission control can affect deployments and platform reliability.
Technical view
CVE-2026-23881 is a CWE-770 resource consumption flaw in Kyverno’s policy engine. A low-privileged user with policy creation rights can abuse context variables to exponentially amplify string data, causing high availability impact. CVSS 3.1 score is 7.7, with network attack vector and low attack complexity.
Likely exposure
Organizations running Kyverno versions before 1.15.3, or 1.16.0 through before 1.16.3, are exposed if users or automation can create Kyverno policies. Exposure is highest in multi-team clusters where policy authoring permissions are delegated.
Exploitation context
The sources describe denial of service by crafted policies requiring policy creation privileges. The provided data does not indicate known active exploitation, and the CVE is not marked as KEV. No public exploit status is established in the supplied sources.
Researcher notes
The advisory attributes impact to unbounded memory consumption from context variable amplification. The patch references are available, but this analysis does not infer implementation details beyond the supplied sources. Validate exposure through version checks and policy-authoring access review.
Mitigation direction
- Upgrade Kyverno to 1.16.3 or 1.15.3 as applicable.
- Review vendor advisory for deployment-specific upgrade guidance.
- Limit Kyverno policy creation privileges to trusted administrators.
- Monitor Kyverno pods for memory spikes, restarts, or admission disruption.
Validation and detection
- Inventory all Kyverno deployments and record running versions.
- Confirm no affected versions remain after upgrade.
- Review Kubernetes RBAC for users allowed to create Kyverno policies.
- Check recent Kyverno stability logs for memory-related failures.
Public sources used
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
Conservative CVE-to-ATT&CK context
These mappings and lookup hints may be relevant to the vulnerability behavior, CWE, affected product, or exposure path. Glexia-inferred context is not an official MITRE, ATT&CK, CWE, or CVE Program mapping.
ATT&CK lookup starting points
Use these exact CWE pages and searches to review the Glexia ATT&CK library from this CVE's weakness and description context.
CWE-770: Exact CWE lookup
Use the exact CWE identifier as the starting point before reviewing related ATT&CK behavior. Open the exact CWE lookup page first, then review the ATT&CK searches from that MITRE weakness context. This is a Glexia lookup hint, not an official ATT&CK mapping.
Open ATT&CK lookupCVE-2026-23881 mapping review
Open the CVE-to-ATT&CK bridge for reviewed, inferred, or future official mappings tied to this CVE.
Open ATT&CK lookup- Severity
- High
- CVSS
- 7.7 (3.1)
- Known Exploited
- No
- Published
Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H
CNA and ADP enrichment extracted from CVE v5
These fields come from the CVE record and ADP containers, not from Glexia's Take. They preserve time-varying source decisions such as CISA SSVC, KEV status, CVSS metrics, and provider references.
CVSS vector scores
1 official scoreWe collect every scored CVSS vector available in the official CNA and ADP containers. When more than one version is present, the table keeps the source vectors side by side instead of collapsing them into the highest score.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H3.14Primary CVE scoreVulnerability scoring details
Base CVSS 3.1 score
7.7HighVector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:H
Source materials
- CVE List V5 sourceCVE List V5
- https://github.com/kyverno/kyverno/security/advisories/GHSA-r2rj-wwm5-x6mqCVE reference · x_refsource_CONFIRM
- https://github.com/kyverno/kyverno/commit/7a651be3a8c78dcabfbf4178b8d89026bf3b850fCVE reference · x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/kyverno/kyverno/commit/f5617f60920568a301740485472bf704892175b7CVE reference · x_refsource_MISC
Products and packages named in the record
CWE details
CWE links open Glexia weakness intelligence pages with official CWE context, developer remediation guidance, and related CVE mappings.
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.