CVE-2026-22728 is a medium-severity (CVSS 4.9) CWE-284 vulnerability in github.com/bitnami-labs/sealed-secrets. A fix is available for github.com/bitnami-labs/sealed-secrets — see the affected versions and patch details below.
sealed-secrets /v1/rotate can widen sealing scope to cluster-wide via attacker-controlled template annotations
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2026-22728.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2026-22728 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 377,636 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
github.com/bitnami-labs/sealed-secretsReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Go packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
This report shows a scope-widening issue in the rotate (re-encrypt) flow: the output scope can be derived from untrusted spec.template.metadata.annotations on the input sealed secret.
If a victim sealed secret is strict- or namespace-scoped, an attacker who can submit it to the rotate endpoint can set sealedsecrets.bitnami.com/cluster-wide=true in the template metadata and receive a rotated sealed secret that is cluster-wide, enabling retargeting (metadata.name/metadata.namespace) and unsealing to recover the victim plaintext.
Relevant Links (Pinned)
- Rotate handler uses
NewSealedSecret(..., secret)after unsealing: https://github.com/bitnami-labs/sealed-secrets/blob/946bc048f3407117c837da6e4300686522d4c4eb/pkg/controller/controller.go#L560-L606 - Scope derivation reads secret annotations (
SecretScope): https://github.com/bitnami-labs/sealed-secrets/blob/946bc048f3407117c837da6e4300686522d4c4eb/pkg/apis/sealedsecrets/v1alpha1/sealedsecret_expansion.go#L112-L122
Root Cause
The rotate flow unseals the input sealed secret to a Secret, then reseals using NewSealedSecret(..., secret).
Because SecretScope(secret) is computed from secret annotations, and unsealing applies spec.template metadata onto the unsealed secret, an attacker can influence the scope of the rotated output by mutating template annotations on the rotate input.
Attack Path
- Attacker obtains a victim
SealedSecretobject (for example via read access to resources or logs) and can submit it to the controller rotate endpoint. - Attacker sets
spec.template.metadata.annotations.sealedsecrets.bitnami.com/cluster-wide=true(and optionally retargets name/namespace fields). - Rotate returns a resealed, cluster-wide sealed secret that is no longer bound to the victim name/namespace.
- Attacker unseals the rotated output in their chosen namespace/name to recover the victim plaintext.
Proof of Concept
Setup + run:
unzip poc.zip -d poc
cd poc
make test
Canonical output (excerpt):
[CALLSITE_HIT]: pkg/apis/sealedsecrets/v1alpha1/sealedsecret_expansion.go:112 SecretScope
[PROOF_MARKER]: scope_widened=true rotated_scope=cluster-wide
Control output (excerpt):
[NC_MARKER]: scope_widened=false strict_scope_preserved=true
Fix Accepted When
Rotate preserves the original sealing scope and does not allow scope widening based on untrusted template metadata; strict or namespace-wide inputs cannot produce cluster-wide outputs.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/bitnami-labs/sealed-secrets | all versions | 0.36.0go get github.com/bitnami-labs/sealed-secrets@v0.36.0 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/bitnami-labs/sealed-secrets, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update github.com/bitnami-labs/sealed-secrets to 0.36.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-22728 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2026-22728 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2026-22728. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-22728 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2026-22728 across Go dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.