How severe is GHSA-qwgc-rr35-h4x9?

GHSA-qwgc-rr35-h4x9 has a CVSS score of 8.3/10, rated HIGH. Immediate patching is strongly recommended.

Which packages are affected by GHSA-qwgc-rr35-h4x9?

GHSA-qwgc-rr35-h4x9 affects the following packages: github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets (Go). Ecosystems affected: Go.

How do I fix GHSA-qwgc-rr35-h4x9?

Update github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets to 0.10.2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-qwgc-rr35-h4x9 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

How do I detect GHSA-qwgc-rr35-h4x9 in my Go dependencies?

Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.

How do I mitigate GHSA-qwgc-rr35-h4x9 if there is no patch (or I can't update yet)?

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 does O3 Security protect against GHSA-qwgc-rr35-h4x9?

O3 pinpoints whether GHSA-qwgc-rr35-h4x9 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.

Is GHSA-qwgc-rr35-h4x9 actively exploited in the wild?

No public exploit code has been indexed for GHSA-qwgc-rr35-h4x9 yet. This does not mean the vulnerability cannot be exploited — absence of public exploits does not imply safety. Apply the recommended fix and use O3 Security to monitor your exposure.

What is the EPSS score for GHSA-qwgc-rr35-h4x9?

GHSA-qwgc-rr35-h4x9 has an EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) score of 0.6%, placing it in the 44th percentile of all CVEs. EPSS is maintained by FIRST.org and estimates the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. This score indicates relatively lower exploitation probability, though the CVSS severity should still guide your patching priority.

What type of vulnerability is GHSA-qwgc-rr35-h4x9?

GHSA-qwgc-rr35-h4x9 is classified as Improper Privilege Management (CWE-269), CWE-732 (CWE-732). These weakness types describe the underlying flaw category, which helps determine the potential impact and the right class of mitigation.

When was GHSA-qwgc-rr35-h4x9 published, and has it been updated?

GHSA-qwgc-rr35-h4x9 was published on September 9, 2024 and was last updated on September 18, 2024. Advisory data evolves as severity scores, affected ranges, and exploit intelligence are revised — always check the latest version of the advisory before acting.

🐹 Go

GHSA-qwgc-rr35-h4x9

HIGH

External Secrets Operator vulnerable to privilege escalation

Also known asCVE-2024-45041GO-2024-3126

Published

Sep 9, 2024

Updated

Sep 18, 2024

Affected

1 pkg

Patched

1 / 1

Exploits

None indexed

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗

0.6%probability of exploitation in next 30 days

Lower Risk44th percentile+0.19%

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.

Blast Radius

1 pkg affected

🐹github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets

Real-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

Details

The external-secrets has a deployment called default-external-secrets-cert-controller, which is bound with a same-name ClusterRole. This ClusterRole has "get/list" verbs of secrets resources(https://github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets/blob/main/deploy/charts/external-secrets/templates/cert-controller-rbac.yaml#L49). It also has path/update verb of validatingwebhookconfigurations resources(https://github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets/blob/main/deploy/charts/external-secrets/templates/cert-controller-rbac.yaml#L27). As a result, if a malicious user can access the worker node which has this deployment. he/she can:

For the "get/list secrets" permission, he/she can abuse the SA token of this deployment to retrieve or get ALL secrets in the whole cluster, including the cluster-admin secret if created. After that, he/she can abuse the cluster-admin secret to do whatever he/she likes to the whole cluster, resulting in a cluster-level privilege escalation.
For the patch/update verb of validatingwebhookconfigurations, the malicious user can abuse these permissions to get sensitive data or lanuch DoS attacks:

For the privilege escalation attack, by updating/patching a Webhook to make it listen to Secret update operations, the attacker can capture and log all data from requests attempting to update Secrets. More specifically, when a Secret is updated, this Webhook sends the request data to the logging-service, which can then log the content of the Secret. This way, an attacker could indirectly gain access to the full contents of the Secret.

For the DoS attack, by updating/patching a Webhook, and making it deny all Pod create and update requests, the attacker can prevent any new Pods from being created or existing Pods from being updated, resulting in a Denial of Service (DoS) attack.

PoC

Please see the "Details" section

Impact

Privilege escalation

Affected Packages

1 total 1 fixed

Ecosystem	Package	Vulnerable range	Fix
🐹Go	`github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets`	all versions	0.10.2

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

Detect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets to 0.10.2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-qwgc-rr35-h4x9 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 pinpoints whether GHSA-qwgc-rr35-h4x9 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.

Tailored to GHSA-qwgc-rr35-h4x9. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.

Frequently Asked Questions

### Details The external-secrets has a deployment called default-external-secrets-cert-controller, which is bound with a same-name ClusterRole. This ClusterRole has "get/list" verbs of secrets resources(https://github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets/blob/main/deploy/charts/external-secrets/templates/cert-controller-rbac.yaml#L49). It also has path/update verb of validatingwebhookconfigurations resources(https://github.com/external-secrets/external-secrets/blob/main/deploy/charts/external-secrets/templates/cert-controller-rbac.yaml#L27). As a result, if a malicious user can access the wor

O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

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