CVE-2024-5042
MediumCVSS 6.6Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Low risk42th percentile - higher than 42% of all known CVEs
Summary
A flaw in the Submariner project involves unnecessary RBAC permissions. A privileged attacker can run a malicious container on a node, steal service account tokens, and compromise other nodes or the entire cluster.
Risk Assessment
The risk includes privilege escalation within the Kubernetes cluster, potential takeover of multiple nodes, and compromise of the entire container environment.
Recommendation
Immediately update Submariner to a version that removes unnecessary RBAC permissions, and review and restrict permissions assigned to service accounts.
Other vulnerabilities in Submariner
See all- CVE-2026-66786Critical
In Submariner's cert-auth mode, connection configuration is built from unvalidated free-form strings from the CRD. A malicious cluster can publish a CableName with newlines and ipsec.conf directives, allowing injection of arbitrary configuration or command execution via leftupdown hooks, leading to remote code execution as root on the gateway node.
- CVE-2026-66785Low
A vulnerability in Submariner allows a malicious cluster (spoke) to redirect network traffic from other connected clusters by publishing a specially crafted network endpoint. The system fails to properly validate network subnets, enabling the malicious cluster to declare arbitrary network ranges.
- CVE-2026-66781Medium
A flaw was found in the Submariner operator. The Submariner Custom Resource (CR), used for configuring network connectivity, stores the IPsec pre-shared key (PSK) in an unencrypted format. This key, which is critical for securing communication between Kubernetes clusters, can be accessed by unauthorized parties. Such access enables an attacker to passively decrypt network traffic flowing between any two clusters in the mesh, resulting in sensitive information disclosure.
Original NVD description (English source)
A flaw was found in the Submariner project. Due to unnecessary role-based access control permissions, a privileged attacker can run a malicious container on a node that may allow them to steal service account tokens and further compromise other nodes and potentially the entire cluster.
Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS